Turing's Delirium

by Edmundo Paz Soldán

  He takes off his earphones and stands up, stretching muscles that are in need of exercise; his joints crack like the sound of a broom handle breaking. Feeling his way in the darkness, he heads to the refrigerator to look for food: hot-and-sour soup in a take-out container. He empties it into a bowl and puts it in the microwave. He has not been out of the apartment for days. His scraggly beard and long bangs are both in need of a trim.

  He looks out the windows at the vague outline of the Government Citadel on the hilltop. The local offices of the ministry of information. If only they knew that his computer stores as much information about the government as all of the computers in all of the buildings in the Government Citadel.

  On a table are file folders containing all the information he has downloaded from the Internet regarding the bid for the power plant in Rio Fugitivo. The company that will be in charge, GlobaLux, is an Italian-American consortium. To Kandinsky, this is the most vulgar symbol of Montenegro's neoliberal policies. In a desperate race toward total privatization, the government has carried on the work of its predecessors and relinquished control of sectors that are strategic to the national economy. Not many are left. The railway has been passed into Chilean hands; the telephone company is held by the Spanish; the national airline was owned by Brazilians for a while but fell back into the hands of a local group—backed, rumors say, by an Argentine holding company. The Americans are looking covetously at the natural gas and petroleum and now, together with the Italians, will have control of the electricity in Rio Fugitivo. This final blow, in Kandinsky's opinion, is an indication of the government's complete abdication in the face of the forces of globalization. When there is nothing left to sell, the Restoration will reach out from the virtual world of Playground into the world that sustains reality.

  It is time to go out and initiate the Resistance.

  "Go out" is just a metaphor. It is time to go online and initiate the Resistance.

  ***

  Ever since his time with Phiber Outkast, Kandinsky has done everything possible to erase his prints from the world. He does not even go out with women now. Even though he misses spending time with them, and though he is sure that by shying away from them he has lost something very important, he is convinced that the mission he has set for himself makes any kind of contact dangerous. Anonymity, he reminds himself when he feels like wandering through the streets of Playground in search of avatars that will lead him to women. He is a twenty-first-century monk, his apartment a monastery, the computer an instrument that allows him to isolate himself without isolation. He should shave his head, put on a tunic, and turn his movement into a cult.

  It helps that no one knows him. The mystery of BoVe in Playground is due in part to the fact that no one knows who controls him. But how can he mount an attack against GlobaLux and the government without knowing the hackers who will form part of the Resistance in real life? Can he simply trust those who control the Restoration avatars in Playground? Impossible. There are some whose real identity is not at all like their behavior in Playground. Playground is a fantasy world, a universe where one can try on multiple identities, wear them as if taking part in a huge street carnival, and take them off when the party is over.

  Late at night he walks through the rainy streets of the semi-deserted city. He arrives at his parents' and approaches the house. There is a silhouette against the window: his brother. He finally confirms what his intuition told him before: he has embarked on a road of no return. They have grown apart, and there is no way he can one day play the role of the prodigal son, as he has hoped for so long.

  And yet he is fighting for them. Fighting to give his parents' jobs dignity and worth. Fighting to give his brother a future. One day they will understand.

  When he returns to his apartment, he will have decided that it is not yet time to show his face. After hours of hacking into the files of those who are in charge of the Restoration's avatars, he will come to the conclusion that he can trust four of them. One is Rafael Corso, a Rat who works in the vicinity of a shopping center in Bohemia. Another is Peter Baez, a computer student who works for Playground. The other two are Nelson Vivas and Freddy Padilla; both earn their living working for the online edition of El Posmo.

  That same night he sends them an encrypted e-mail message asking them to meet him in a secret IRC chatroom in Playground. There he tells them of his plans. All of them accept without Kandinsky's needing to insist.

  The group that Kandinsky has named the Resistance begins to operate a few weeks later. The first attacks are aimed at large corporations: a virus in Coca-Cola's accounting system in Buenos Aires, a DoS attack on AOL-Brazil and Federal Express in Santa Cruz. Lana Nova, who has just been given an upgrade and now has twice the number of her original facial expressions, reports that the only concrete thing the police know is that the attacks originate in Rio Fugitivo. Some editorials proudly point out that in terms of technical ability, "our youth have no need to envy those in the so-called First World."

  Months go by. GlobaLux takes control of the electricity in Rio and immediately decrees an average rate hike of 80 percent (some companies have their rates hiked by 200 percent). The government pays no attention to the first signs of civil unrest, violent demonstrations outside the GlobaLux offices. Soon after, it is announced on the news that a Coalition Party has been formed in Rio Fugitivo, a heterogeneous group of political parties, unions, industrial workers, and campesinos that is willing to confront the government.

  Kandinsky, who has decided to unite the Resistance's fight with the Coalition's, laughs to find himself in such strange company. Ideologically, he thinks that his fight goes beyond the joint struggle with the Coalition. However, the truth is that teenage hackers unable to face reality except from behind a computer monitor are marching side by side with weathered unionists holding dynamite in their hands at street protests. Unknowingly, old and new ways of fighting join forces against the same enemy.

  ***

  Sitting in front of his computer, Kandinsky plans his next move. The fingers on his left hand ache. He should rest for a few days, but he won't; he believes he is capable of overcoming physical pain. He feels powerful, illuminated by a divine mission. Nothing can stop him. He will do what needs to be done, whatever it costs, whoever falls.

  PART III

  Chapter 31

  GRAY CLOUDS WHIZ PAST. Thunder can be heard in the distance. Lightning illuminates the sky for an instant. Immobile ... Between these stinking sheets. Pissing myself ... Saliva dripping from my half-open mouth. I have to appear as if death is near...

  It won't arrive. It won't ever arrive.

  I am an electric ant...

  I've been in this situation many times. A knife sliced through my stomach five centuries ago. A bullet exploded in my head in the nineteenth century. I persist ... I don't know what else to do...

  Turing left quite a while ago ... Luckily ... He will spend hours mulling over my words. As if they made sense. Maybe they do ... I can't see it. My memory is failing. Which is strange. When it's my own memories ... And not something else. Such as. A parasitic memory of one of the other beings that I was ... That I am.

  I'm left with no one but myself. As usual. Exhausted by my own ideas. Incapable of being surprised by my own feelings...

  I am many ... But I am only one...

  Historians always focus on those who led wars. They think that the ones who ordered the movements of troops are the ones most responsible ... For the course of events ... They also focus on the soldiers. The fate of a nation can be found in their bravery or cowardice. They're not very interested in cryptologists ... Those who cipher and those who decipher. Office work isn't terribly exciting ... All that math ... Too much logic...

  And yet they have determined the course that wars have taken.

  This was never as true as in World War I. During the day ferocious battles were fought ... Five hundred thousand Germans killed. If we include Verdun and the Somme. Three hundred thousand Frenc
h ... One hundred and seventy thousand British...

  But the real battle was fought by cryptographers and cryptanalysts ... The radio had been invented. The military was fascinated ... By the possibility of communication between two points without the need for wires ... That meant there were more messages. It also meant they could all be intercepted ... The French were the best. We French were the best. We intercepted a million of the Germans' words over the course of the war. A code was created ... And deciphered ... Another was created ... And deciphered ... And so on. A war without cryptographic discoveries goes down in history. All good intentions ... That ended in failure. Handing over all of their secrets.

  During the war I was the Frenchman Georges Painvin ... I worked for the Bureau du Chiffre in Paris ... My job was to look for weak points in the Germans' codes. One of the most important was ADFGX ... They began to use it in March 1918. A little before their big offensive that same month. It was an intricate mixture of substitution and transposition procedures ... Since the code was transmitted in Morse. The letters ADFGX were keys. You see, they didn't resemble one another at all in Morse code. So there was no possibility of confusion.

  In March 1918, Paris was about to fall. The Germans had come to within sixty-five miles. They were preparing for the final attack ... All that was left for us Allies was the possibility of penetrating the ADFGX code ... And thereby learning where they would concentrate their attack.

  And I ... Georges Painvin ... Dedicated all my efforts to just that. I lost weight. Two pounds. Five pounds. Twenty pounds. Thirty-five pounds ... Until the night of June 2, when I managed to decipher a message written in that code ... Which then allowed other messages to be deciphered.

  One of them urgently requested munitions ... The message had been sent from a location fifty miles from Paris ... Between Montdidier and Compiegne. If the Germans needed munitions there ... It was because they would attack from that area. Our reconnaissance planes confirmed it. Allied soldiers were sent to reinforce that section of the front ... The Germans had lost the element of surprise. And then they lost the battle.

  My throat is filled with phlegm ... It's ... Hard ... To breathe ... All of my passages are narrowing. Even someone who is immortal. Feels pain ... And the unmistakable sensation of imminent death.

  I am an electric ant ... Connected to these tubes. I'd like to escape. Jump through the window to freedom ... As I once did.

  This waiting for another body exhausts me ... Who will I be incarnated as this time? In whom will the spirit of Cryptanalysis live on?

  Perhaps an adolescent, by himself in a recreation room. With a crossword puzzle ... Acrostics ... Anagrams ... Or doing calculations on a computer. Trying to create his own algorithms ... An algorithm that will get to the root of his thoughts. There's something artificial about our intelligence ... Or perhaps the artificial intelligence of machines is what allows us to understand our own ... It's the prism through which we see ourselves.

  I think I just heard the sound of a gun being fired with a silencer ... But I can't do anything. The guard who was at the door has shot someone. Or maybe they shot him ... Maybe they're coming for me. I wouldn't be surprised. Nothing surprises me ... Except the long wait ... How long the wait is...

  I don't know where I was a child. I don't know if I was a child.

  I worked at Kaufbeuren.

  It's raining. And thundering. Perhaps the shot I heard was thunder. But no. They're impossible to confuse.

  But what Painvin did. What I did. Wasn't as important for the course of events ... As what happened with the Zimmermann telegram. You could, in fact, say that this particular deciphering altered the outcome of the war. And no one would argue ... Not even historians who know nothing of cryptography. Or perhaps they would.

  It happened in 1917 ... The Germans had come to one conclusion. The only way to defeat England was to stop provisions from reaching the island ... The plan was to use submarines to sink any ship that attempted to reach its shores. Even neutral ships ... Even American ships ... But there was the fear that the Americans would react to the attacks ... And decide to join the war. This had to be prevented ... So German strategists hatched an absurd plan. But it was approved...

  They knew that there was tension between the Americans and the Mexicans. The idea was to get Mexico to declare war on the United States ... Such an attack would keep the U.S. occupied ... Defending their own territory would prevent them from focusing on Europe ... There was also the possibility that Japan would take advantage of the war and land troops in California ... Back then ... Mexico had a good relationship with Japan. Which made the Americans nervous.

  Steps are drawing closer. They're coming toward me. A shadow silhouetted in the doorway. I open my eyes. My gaze is vacant. As if my eyes weren't open.

  I don't know him. He has spots on his cheeks. Wine-colored spots.

  The decision to cordon off the British Isles using submarine warfare was made at Pless Castle ... In Silesia ... Where the German high command was located. Chancellor Hollweg was against the plan ... But Hindenburg and Ludendorff were the ones who decided how the war was fought ... And they were able to convince the kaiser.

  The man stops next to me ... He has a gun in his hands. With a silencer ... He doesn't need to use it. He could just disconnect the tubes that allow me to breathe. The ones that turn me ... Into...

  An electric ant...

  Six weeks after the decision was made. A newly appointed minister of foreign affairs ... Arthur Zimmermann ... Arrived on the scene ... He sent a telegram to Heinrich von Eckardt. German ambassador in Mexico.

  In essence ... The telegram read ...We plan to initiate unrestricted submarine warfare February 1. However we will try to keep United States neutral. If this does not work we propose an alliance with Mexico under the following conditions. Fight the war together. Declare peace together. Our total support and agreement for Mexico to recover territory lost previously. Texas. New Mexico. Arizona.

  A shot fired into my chest.

  The telegram was sent by telegraph. There were no radio stations in Mexico capable of receiving the telegram from Berlin.

  The bullet slices through my skin...

  So it was sent to the German embassy in Washington. Thanks to an agreement with Woodrow Wilson ... The Germans used American wires to send their coded messages between Berlin and Washington. So there was nothing suspicious about this.

  Blood seeping into my pajamas.

  What the Germans didn't know was that the messages between Berlin and Washington. Passed through England.

  A puddle extending outward ... Life seeping away...

  Or more precisely. Through Room 40. The prestigious cryptology division of Naval Intelligence. In the Admiralty Old Building. Eight hundred radio operators. Eight cryptologists.

  A puddle that stops. But doesn't stop.

  The man with the spotted cheeks leaves the room. Albert closes his eyes. He's dead ... I'm dead ... About time. Time to look for another body.

  I was arrested in Rosenheim. Markets. Ruins. Medieval towers. A valley. A boy.

  At that time radio operators encrypted codes following sequences in codebooks ... It was a rudimentary, dangerous method. When an enemy ship was sunk ... The first thing they tried to find was the codebooks. Toward the end of 1914 ... A German destroyer was sunk. They found several books and documents ... In an aluminum box. The men of Room 40 discovered that one of the codebooks was the Verkehrsbuch. Which was used ... Among other things ... For the exchange of messages between Berlin and its naval attachés ... In their various embassies abroad...

  When the Zimmermann telegram arrived in Room 40 ... Two cryptologists ... the Reverend Montgomery and Nigel de Grey. Read the first line.

  130. 13042. 13401. 8501. 115. 3528. 416. 17214. 6491. 11310.

  The first line generally contained the number of the codebook that was used to cipher the message ... The number 13042 reminded them of another number ... 13040 ... Which belonged to a Ger
man codebook that Room 40 possessed ... They also had a book containing variations of this code. So it was easy. For me. Montgomery ... And for me ... de Grey ... to decipher at least the main parts of the message.

  I'm dead. Another body.

  When they used codebooks. The Germans tended to cipher their messages twice ... As a precaution ... However ... They hadn't with the Zimmermann telegram. In February 1917 ... President Wilson was advised of the telegram. In March ... Surprisingly ... Zimmermann admitted to the authenticity of the telegram. On April 6 ... The United States declared war on Germany.

  I. Am. Dead.

  No I'm not.

  Another body. The same body.

  Electric ant.

  Chapter 32

  FLAVIA SITS DOWN in front of the computer. Her parents are out and the house is silent; all she can hear is the meowing of the neighbor's Siamese cat, which is in heat and is not letting anyone in the neighborhood sleep much lately. The morning breeze blows in through the partially open window, a breath of air rustling the branches of the trees and caressing her back.

  She won't leave the house until her mission is complete. Rafael deserves that much. She doesn't know how things would have unfolded with him, but she is sure that she will never meet anyone so like herself.

  Flavia had never seen death up close. It will be impossible to forget Rafael's bloodied chest at the bottom of the stairs in the Internet café; his eyes were wide open, but he was already dead. When the police came, they asked her whether she had seen anything. She was afraid of getting involved. Sobbing, all she said was, that she had just met him on the bus. She didn't know anything. They let her go, told her they would contact her later. Once alone, Flavia thought it over and decided to contact them first. She said that she would talk, but only to people at the Black Chamber. She had information that might be of interest to them.