He needs to act intelligently, to beat the enemy at its own game. After all, wasn't that the message of someone like Subcommander Marcos? The Zapatistas have a Web site and disseminate their proclamations via the Internet. Their flexibility at adapting the enemy's weapons allows them to thrive.
Being a purist will lead him only to a monastery, and that is not the path he wants to take. Two hours later, he returns in search of the Nokia. He finds it.
Kandinsky meets women in the recently inaugurated Playground. It is a fascinating virtual world: not a medieval fantasy but a modern city, like the one he knows, though slightly futuristic and decadent. Armed with some of his avatars, he walks through its virtual streets. He hates the Boulevard because of the excessive advertising on its neon signs: Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger. He prefers the dangerous neighborhoods, because he knows that there he will find women who are more open to adventure. There is never a shortage, even though the women who attract him most do not live in Río Fugitivo. They surreptitiously agree to meet later in cafés or bars, using already-established codes because the rules of Playground prohibit mentioning the real world. Sometimes the meeting is disappointing: the avatar with knee-high boots and a suggestive miniskirt belongs to an overweight secretary or an overly madeup gay who exhales cigarette smoke in his face. At times the avatar is similar to reality and there is a second date and, if he's lucky, a few hours in a motel. Within a few days, Kandinsky grows tired of the women and again takes up the chase in Playground.
One night he meets an avatar named Iris. Somewhat androgynous, with military boots and a square jaw. He invites her to have a drink in a bar on the Boulevard. She accepts, on the condition that she pay her own way. She does not want to owe anyone anything. A guy can't even be gallant with virtual women, Kandinsky thinks. He wants to say this to her but doesn't, because he knows he would be committing an offense.
At the Electric Sheep, after Iris introduces herself, an exchange comes out of nowhere:
IRIS: globalization is the cancer thats eating away @ the world even Playground is a symptom of this cancer the new opiate of the masses a virtual screen where people amuse themselves w/o realizing its all a setup by big corporations we have 2 get away from this go live in a cyberstate
KANDINSKY: we have 2 create a lot of seattles
IRIS: thats not the answer the empire allows protests in order 2 have more control
KANDINSKY: if u dont like Playground then y do u come here
IRIS: scouting trip its always good 2 know enemy terrain
The conversation comes to an end: the Playground police appear, read Iris her rights, and suspend her for ten days. Iris disappears from the screen as she screams about the need for isolation.
Kandinsky thinks about what she said. It struck a chord deep inside him.
He runs into Iris again ten days later. They agree to meet outside of Playground, in a private chatroom on the Internet.
KANDINSKY: thx 4 coming back i thought a lot about what u said
IRIS: i dont go often i cant stand Playground ads everywhere
KANDINSKY: thats the way it is on the net
IRIS: not everywhere that wasnt the original idea y it was created there r pirate Utopian cyberstates temporal autonomous worlds
KANDINSKY: pirate Utopian
IRIS: like the privateers from the 18th C a series of remote islands where ships restocked n loot was bartered 4 provisions n other things communities that live outside the law outside the state even 4 a short while islands on the net
KANDINSKY: these days its not possible 2 live outside the law outside the state
IRIS: in cyberspace it is thx 2 encryption programs like public-key cryptography PGP anonymous email there r autonomous political communities defining a space where the nation-state cant reach w/ its laws thats cryptoanarchy i live in 1 u should visit fredonia
KANDINSKY: law will arrive sooner or later
IRIS: in these pirate Utopias there r virtual laws virtual judges virtual punishments institutions that respect the moral autonomy of the individual theyre just egalitarian not like institutions in the real world whats important is that they exist even 4 a short time then reappear in another place on the net autonomous temporal worlds no permanent government structures thats what we want
KANDINSKY: u dont get anywhere w/ anarchy
IRIS: anarchy isnt about blowing up banks or stores its not ignoring authority its asking that authority b able to justify its authority if it cant then it should disappear its about giving more responsibility back 2 the individual thx 2 new technologies its possible 2 undermine the power of the nation-state remember the net we need 2 go back 2 it take control of virtual space the way is cryptoanarchy
Kandinsky will visit Fredonia, and the social organization of this MOO will excite him. (MOO is an object-oriented MUD: participants in MOOs have more freedom to create and modify the virtual universe as they go.) He will discover that there are over 350 MOOs on the Web, each one with different forms of government and social organization. He will live in Fredonia for a month and a half. He will not meet Iris in person, but during that time he will fall in love with her; they will share a virtual home and will even, in the ecstasy of passion, talk about having a family.
One morning he will wake up saying to himself that it has all been a magnificent dream but a dream after all. He will say good-bye to Iris and thank her for having shown him the way. Now he too has a pirate utopia. It was true, people had to take back what belonged to them; Playground had to be attacked until it came to its knees; people had to reclaim virtual space, and not only that but real space as well. There was a government, there were corporations to fight against. It was no use hiding on an island on the Internet.
One Sunday, Laura will take him by surprise in the bathroom. After a quivering encounter—the sound of pigeons on the roof—she will slip out of his arms and disappear in silence.
A little while later, his skin still tingling with excitement, Kandinsky will go back into the Citibank site. This time he won't steal credit card numbers; he will destroy the homepage and replace it with a photo of Karl Marx and graffiti proclaiming the need for resistance.
It is the birth of Kandinsky's cyberhacktivism.
PART II
Chapter 16
YOU HURRY INTO the Black Chamber, the building silhouetted against the immense, brusque night like a lighthouse in high seas. The ritual of the ID card in the slot. The police officers at the entrance barely acknowledge you this time, a slight nod of the head, their faces tense, or perhaps they are tired, trying not to yawn. It has been a long night, and there are still a few hours left to go.
Outside darkness reigns, but inside the building you are bathed in white light, intrusive in its intensity. You walk down the hallways as so often before, anxious, excited, when you knew that destinies depended on you, when with a snap of your fingers you could abolish chance. Counting silently, reviewing the frequencies of letters in any phrase that "came to mind—a cat hidden with its tail sticking out is more hidden than a tail with a cat sticking out—you would head to the Decoding Room, where Albert, a cigarette between his lips under a NO SMOKING sign, his unbrushed hair on end, would be waiting with the file of intransigent messages for you to attempt to break. Un-sol-va-bles, he would say, exaggerating the pronunciation, giving each syllable a breath of independence. Can you? Opening the crypt to find someone alive inside, heart beating, breathing labored. Un-sol-va-bles. You were the first to try, or at times the last, when all the other cryptanalysts in the building had thrown their hands in the air. Albert trusted you, and his question was rhetorical: he knew you could. You would take the file without looking him in the eye—such waste in the exchange of messages—and would already be pondering the solution, even before facing the problem. Clearing away the undergrowth, leaving a clean slate for your mental algorithms, as if your life depended on each attempt. Ah, stubborn intellect constantly trying to outdo itself!
But you do not head
to the Decoding Room now. You have not headed there for a long time, ever since Ramírez-Graham arrived. It hurts when you recall the day you did and were denied entrance. You no longer belonged to the inner circle. You returned to your office, only to find that it was not yours anymore. Your books and files, photos of Ruth and Flavia, as well as a clock that had stopped working long ago, all lay in a cardboard box. You had been reassigned; you were now head of the archives. A promotion, they said, congratulations, but you felt as if it were a demotion. Otherwise, why the closed door? The metaphor became literal the first time you descended to your new office, in the basement.
The atmosphere in the Bletchley Room is frenzied. The computers are on, the screens glowing like aquariums; people are coming and going. You miss that hustle and bustle. Romero Flores, a cryptanalyst with a perpetual tic in his right eye, approaches. He acts as if he is your friend, but you hate the way he stares at the photo of Flavia on your desk and tells you that you have a verrrrrry beautiful daughter.
"You're late. The boss was looking for you."
"Just what I need. Whenever they say it's urgent, it's never anything important."
"It is this time. They need your memory, Turing."
"The memory of the archives, you mean."
The red diagonal stripes on his tie ... What did the red and blue mean? Was he trying to say that Turing was going to be reprimanded by Ramírez-Graham?
Once again the elevator ride, the descent into that infinite well of information, that well of infinite information. Otis, green walls, maximum six passengers, 1000 pounds, last inspected nine months ago. Could it launch you into the abyss without haste? Yes, according to a calculation of probabilities. How many seconds have you spent in this elevator? All together they added up to minutes and hours, even days: a worthy sum of life.
You take your glasses off; the bent frame makes your eyes hurt. You put them back on. A spearmint Chiclet in your mouth. Less than a minute later, you throw it into the garbage. You check the news. Slowly, the government's communication services are beginning to work again. The electronic graffiti that was posted by the hackers has been mostly erased. You should have stayed at home.
Your first trip to the basement had been six months after you started work at the Black Chamber. That afternoon you had gone into Albert's office to discuss the week's news. You had already become his protégé. He assigned you the lion's share of the work and were his salvation when a ciphered message resisted interpretation by others. Your coworkers were jealous of that preference. It didn't matter to you. Nothing mattered as long as you could be near Albert, do what he told you to do.
That afternoon Albert came out of his office and asked you to accompany him. You walked down the narrow hallways toward the elevator. He continued speaking in his captivating voice with his strange accent, Spanish at times inflected by foreign syllables and intonations. Where was he really from? He spoke of how much there was to be done in Rio Fugitivo. Once you were in the elevator, he said, "The government has given me carte blanche, but there's no money. With more money, I'd perform miracles." "You should take it with a grain of salt, boss. You've already done plenty." "Our enemies never sleep, Turing." The door opened. You did not know where you were. Stumbling in the darkness, you followed him. "I'm going to turn this floor into the general archives. So much paper accumulates. We have to begin to organize it, file it all." Albert stopped and turned around, bringing his face close to yours. You felt an anxious tremor in your lips. You looked down at the floor. "Turing, look at me. There's no reason to be ashamed." You lifted your gaze. His lips drew closer to yours. You tried to dissociate yourself, become detached from the moment, see yourself from afar as if someone else were in the basement with Albert, but you discovered that you did not want to distance yourself entirely. You wanted to please Albert. You wanted your boss to be happy. He deserved nothing less.
His mouth stopped before touching yours. Was he testing you? Did he want to see the extent of your submission? What you were capable of? He already knew: you were capable of anything. No more proof was required; there was no need to kiss you. He turned back around and continued speaking of his plans to install an archive in the basement. Nothing had happened.
There were other incidents similar to the one in the basement, but Albert never actually touched you. You told yourself that unlike the real Alan Turing, you were not attracted to men, although you did have to admit that you felt slighted when nothing happened. You were extremely disappointed when you found out that there were other men and women in Albert's life, but you did nothing to tell him of your feelings. In time you discovered that his interest in you was purely intellectual and you quietly accepted your role. Something was better than nothing. The threats of physical contact became fewer as the years passed but never disappeared entirely.
"Wake up, Mr. Sáenz."
Baez is in the room, Santana next to him. Ramírez-Graham's acolytes. You detest them. They think that everything begins and ends with a computer; without one, they couldn't add up a simple sum. With such mediocrity in charge, how did the government expect to combat the signals that crossed in the air, the electronic pulses that smelled of treason, that oozed conspiracy?
"Mr. Sáenz, you're late."
You hate that Baez doesn't call you Turing. Is that his way of saying you are beneath him, that you are just an old civil servant who hasn't been fired solely because of compassion? No, not only that, it's the secrets that you keep, the files you've seen, the orders that have been given or the fury that has been unleashed as a result of your work. Arrogant upstart had barely learned his first incoherent words when you were writing—better yet, deciphering—your years of glory. And to top it all off, now they call you a criminal, a murderer, and without even showing their faces. Cowards.
"I had to drive carefully. The power is out in some areas of the city."
"All right, OK," Baez said, "but you really must leave a little earlier in order to arrive on time. Punctuality is key. There's no time to waste. All right? OK?"
"We haven't had much luck with the virus," Santana interjects. "But we do have the source code for the software that posted the graffiti on the government sites, and we've found certain suggestive indications."
Source code? Software? Sites? Santana's Spanglish is a joke ... He should save himself the trouble and simply speak in English.
"It's a lucky break," Baez says, "but we all need it. Like the boss says, a criminal's fingerprints can be found even in software."
Not always, you think. Hopefully not this time. So you want to see Ramírez-Graham defeated? That would imply that the government would be defeated. You'd better erase those thoughts from your mind. But it's impossible to confront thought, to prevent it from taking whatever route it chooses. Albert had been on to something in his search for the algorithm that allowed thought to think. Behind the disordered associations of ideas was an order that had to be found, the narrative trigger that was the source of supposed mental chaos. Just like machines, like computers, the human brain had certain logical processes that led thought from one point to another.
"We need," Santana says, "to compare what we have with other graffiti that has similar code. All codes from other attacks were stored on a computer that was infected, but luckily they had all been printed and filed. You must know where they're stored."
You remove your crooked glasses. It is rumored that Ramírez-Graham is in danger of losing his job. He has been unable to catch the men—young men, adolescents, children?—in the Resistance. Ever since they came on the scene, they have played an offensive game of chess against Ramírez-Graham, destroying his pawns, maiming his bishops, and now they are about to take his queen and checkmate his king. Ramírez-Graham walks through the hallways carrying the files of information he has managed to amass, puzzles that are invariably missing a piece and cannot be completed. That's the price of such arrogance. You admit it: in this case, and only this time, you are on the side of the creators and not the dec
ipherers of code.
"Can I see what you have?"
"Whatever you need," says Santana. "Just hurry. Did you know that the boss has decided to turn to your daughter? They say she's very good."
"No, I didn't know. And yes, she is. She has helped us before. During Albert's time—oh, not more than two years ago. Thanks to her, we caught a couple of hackers."
"Crackers, you mean."
If they think that mentioning Flavia will bother you, they are wrong. On the contrary, you are filled with pride: she is your flesh and blood. Albert was the first to realize how talented she was. Ruth and you thought her dexterity with computers was just a sophisticated teenage hobby. Flavia would go places, and you with her.
Baez hands you a black file. Why black, you ask yourself, and not yellow, as always, or blue, or red? You shouldn't read too much into the colors. You open it: pages of binary code, zeros and ones in rigorous formation, capable in their repetitive simplicity of hiding the complete works of Vargas Llosa or the detailed figures from the latest census. The zeros and ones, are they forming any kind of figure? Nothing obvious. You can think of several cases where the creators of code left messages in them, signatures, distinctive signs, mocking or disdainful phrases. They think they're so smart and can't help one final gesture of superiority. What would your work be without these small weaknesses of passion? It is impossible to tame desire completely.
You look up the map of the archives on your computer. To those who were in charge of this floor before you, filing meant simply accumulating information in a disorganized manner. And just as it is easy to lose a book in a library, it is also easy to lose information in an archive. The map on the blinking screen is quite incomplete—black spots on the skin of the tiger. You know, and sigh sadly because of it, that a good deal of information has been lost forever.
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