Flavia had given herself to Rafael when she was Erin and he was Ridley. Did that count? Were those avatars extensions of themselves, or were they completely independent? Just as we may be nothing more than the means by which our genes perpetuate, 'maybe we are simply the instruments that bring our avatars to life on a screen. Flavia was someone's avatar and she controlled avatars that lived in Playground, which in turn controlled others that lived inside computers in Playground...
One of her most successful tactics when searching for hackers had been to create a "best friend." Since all hackers on the Internet have nicknames, it is easy for Flavia, or anyone, to hide her identity. Flavia tends to disguise herself as an online friend of the hacker she wants to contact. To do so she uses some of the identities she has already created and consolidated both in Playground and on IRC, or she creates a new one, depending on the situation. She has "best friends" for some of the most dangerous hackers. Her avatars talk about technicalities, discuss sites to be hacked, and tell hacker jokes; they share a hatred of authority, and sometimes she reveals personal details about her life. Once trust has been established, the hackers do the same with her. At one time she tried to create female best friends, but she didn't get very far: the world of hackers is almost exclusively male. Women have to re-sign themselves to not being taken seriously or to being hacked relentlessly until, as often happened, they are pressured to stop. Flavia was accepted because she was there as a reporter in charge of AllHacker and not as a hacker.
She reviews all the information about Kandinsky that is stored on her hard drive. It isn't much. At one time he was associated with a hacker named Phiber Outkast, who stopped circulating a while ago; he has something against San Ignacio High School; and his tactics for attacking the government are similar to those of a group in Playground called the Restoration. She obtained this information surreptitiously on IRCs and chatrooms in Playground. While the world of hackers seems to be impenetrable at first glance, the truth is that they need to communicate with one another and sometimes do so on open channels. They think they are safe because the words they type in chatrooms disappear within minutes; Flavia's computers, acting in unison, sift through chatrooms and 15,000 IRC channels preferred by hackers searching for key words, and file much of what they find.
Kandinsky is more careful than your average hacker, but he has still left enough information for Flavia to begin her search. People—even those in the Black Chamber—mistakenly think that most hackers can be defeated when you discover their technical approach or fingerprints on their codes. In the great, computerized world of the twenty-first century, Flavia uses deductive methods that nineteenth-century masters such as August Dupin and Sherlock Holmes would applaud. Her motto is something that John Vranesevich, the world's foremost expert on hackers, said: "I don't want to be an expert in the gun; I want to be an expert in the people who pull the trigger."
Her first step is to connect with some past or present partner of Kandinsky's. She searches "Phiber Outkast" in her database. The computer provides her with the names of seven hackers who have used that pseudonym at some time. Four of them seem interesting. Flavia decides to use the name Wolfram for herself. First she sets up a monitoring system on the computers that belong to those four hackers. By the end of the morning she has narrowed it down to one, who now calls himself PhatalWorm. Her files indicate that he is in his twenties and works at an Internet security company in the Twenty-First-Century Towers.
That afternoon Flavia has Wolfram send PhatalWorm a message about the inherent weaknesses in antihacker security systems. PhatalWorm is not surprised by the message—hackers are used to strangers trying to strike up conversations in chatrooms—and replies with a long diatribe in which he says that the only system that hasn't been fooled in all of Bolivia is Fire Wall. They chat about security systems for two hours. Wolfram says he knows a few secrets about FireWall.
PHATALWORM: like
Flavia will take a chance. Hackers write the letter/as ph. It looks better in English, Flavia thinks, but she adopts this style whenever she chats with hackers, just in case.
WOLFRAM: i was a phriend of K a long time ago he told me he was phurious about phirewall he knew everything
PhatalWorm is in a difficult position. If he admits that he knew Kandinsky and was his partner back when he called himself Phiber Outkast, he will be admitting that he is a hacker who sells antihacker systems. He disappears from the chatroom.
He returns at midnight. The temptation to announce his friendship with Kandinsky is irresistible.
PHATALWORM: that big activist with a conscience hypocritical PHUCK
WOLFRAM: u used 2 b phriends
PHATALWORM: a long time ago it doesnt matter
It is evident, however, that it does matter. Having known Kandinsky in person, having been his partner, lends PhatalWorm a certain amount of prestige by association. It is a secret that rises to the surface in all its glory without Wolfram's having to prod. Like a reformed alcoholic nostalgically recalling his days as an irredeemable drunk, PhatalWorm tells Wolfram that Kandinsky is who he is thanks to him and proceeds to tell stories about Kandinsky's humble origins. Flavia reads, saves, records, and ends the conversation with some concrete information: Kandinsky used to live in a rundown house near San Ignacio High School.
The next morning Flavia passes this information along to Ramírez-Graham. He tells her that he will keep her apprised of their investigation.
Flavia stands up and goes into her parents' room. The bed is made: her mom didn't come home last night. Nor does she find the blanket her dad uses when he sleeps on the living room sofa, where Clancy is now sprawled. She asks Rosa. Rosa hasn't seen either of them; they haven't come down for breakfast. Strange—they're usually so predictable, so routine. Maybe they got caught by the blockade. But they would've called.
She finally goes to bed but cannot sleep. She has not done enough.
Chapter 33
THE CELL IS CRAMPED and foul-smelling, with seven women crowded into the tiny space. Two of them are carrying babies, one of whom is crying disconsolately. His face is dirty, with soot marks on his cheeks. He's hungry, Ruth says to herself, the anger palpable on her trembling lips. Hungry, and they're not going to do anything about it.
She approaches the bars of the cell and shouts to a police officer who is leaning in the doorway that leads out onto the patio. Tall, mustached, with a chain in his hands, the officer approaches.
"Go ahead and punish us," she says, "but the babies too? He's not going to stop crying until he gets milk."
"Oh, he'll stop. I've proven that more than once. They get so tired that they fall fast asleep."
"That's no way to treat people."
"No one told you to get into trouble. You go out into the street to stir up a commotion and think that because you're women we won't do anything. Well, this time you're screwed."
"Not even animals deserve to be treated this way."
"What do you know about what they deserve? Get used to it."
He turns around and disappears. Ruth mumbles insults. She is barefoot, and the soles of her feet hurt. They confiscated her manuscript, and without it she feels helpless. They also took her purse and her cell phone. It was a mistake to have gone to the university on such a day. What was her rush? She should have waited until the blockades were over, until the city was demilitarized.
She heads to a corner of the cell and sits down on the floor, her back against the wall. She brings her hands up to her face and strokes the bridge of her nose. Her nostrils hurt. Perhaps tiny ribbons of blood are pooling there, about to let go. She mustn't forget to call the doctor again tomorrow morning, first thing.
She tries to calm herself. These drops of blood that fall from her nose are nothing to worry about. She has just been tense these past few weeks. All the rest is simply rampant hypochondria, with a meaning so clear and simple that she couldn't see it: the blood was her body's way of rejecting Miguel and her own way of life. The truth
was staring at her the whole time.
True, the same thing had happened to her mom. But she hadn't paid attention to what was occurring inside her body, couldn't imagine that her cells were degenerating so rapidly, even though they were. At least Ruth has gone to the doctor, and now she just has to wait for the test results. She shouldn't get carried away until she gets in touch with the doctor. Cancer might be hereditary, but that does not mean it is her fate.
Her last violent visit with her mother is still as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. How could it be otherwise? Her mom was in her room, leaning up against two pillows in bed. Her robe was stained with phlegm. In the semidarkness, Ruth was surprised by her mother's baldness, the sudden way the taut skin on her cheeks had contracted and was wrinkled like an empty wineskin. In less than two months she had gone from living an active retirement to unimaginable suffering. She was crying, and Ruth approached to comfort her. "Don't touch me," her mother said angrily. "Don't look at me ... I'm ashamed to let you see me like this." Ruth had tried to joke. "Oh, Mom, you're still so vain." "I want you to leave ... You, your brothers, your dad ... Leave me alone!" Her hands were shaking, and it was difficult for her to breathe. Ruth wanted to console her. Perhaps she had come at the wrong time, but there had never been a good time in the last two months, ever since the night her mom had complained about a pain in her chest. The next day the doctor who saw her at the hospital sent her to see a specialist, but not before telling her that he feared the worst. By the end of that day the oncologist had confirmed their suspicions and was categorical in his diagnosis: the cancer was so far advanced in her liver and lungs that he gave her less than six months to live. "But I hardly smoke at all," her mom shrieked in the hospital hallway. That was a lie: she smoked two packs a day. Ruth sat down on the edge of the bed. She watched her mom search for something behind the pillows; suddenly she was brandishing a gun. "Put that down, Mom! Where did you get it?" It was the gun with the pearl handle that her dad had bought back when there was a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood. "Go on, sweetheart ... I can't take it anymore." Ruth tried to take the gun away from her mom, who aimed it at her own chest and fired.
A woman sitting next to her jumps up and holds Ruth's hands in hers. Her face is round, her eyes red and very wide.
"Oh, please," she says, "you have to try and help us when you get outta here."
"You may get out before I do."
"How? Why, just look at your clothes. You'll be leaving here in no time. Just like that."
"What did they pick you up for?"
"We were blocking the avenue to the airport. The soldiers came and chased us with chains, grabbing us and our husbands too. But we had to protest! The power bill has gone up so much that we can't pay, and they've got no right. We're tired of them sticking it to us."
"You're absolutely right. It's the same all over the city."
"If you get out, don't forget about us. I'm Eulalia Vázquez." She points to the woman next to her. "And she's Juanita Siles."
"If you get out first, remember me. Ruth Sáenz."
They shake hands. Ruth closes her eyes, overcome by exhaustion. She should be at home, relaxing in the tub, up to her neck in hot water. All those times she had to fight for the bathroom with Flavia, who spent hours in there. What can a person be doing in a bathroom that takes so long? And Miguel didn't let Ruth assert her authority but defended Flavia and let her get away with everything.
The baby continues to cry. She wants to shut him up, to have the cries and shouts of her cellmates disappear. She understands, knows what they are going through, but it is hard to remain calm with so much desperation around. More than anything, she wants to keep a cool head.
Ruth realizes that the blame for the strange course her life has taken can be laid at Miguel's feet. The man for whom her first attraction had taken her by surprise. She liked the long periods of silence in which he would get lost, his evasive glances, his humble gestures that tried not to attract attention. Introspective and intelligent, he was everything that Ruth looked for in a man. She had hated the ones she had dated as a teenager and young adult: loud, clumsy, aggressive in their masculinity. Miguel also understood her passion for the art of codes, which others had found boring and, in the end, out of place in a country like theirs. As a boyfriend of hers had once said, "We have a duty to pursue passions that are more useful to the nation." She had responded that the nation was an arbitrary limit for passions, that the only confine that would suffice was the universe. Years later, when she told Miguel this story, he had applauded her response. Ah, Turing: he had wanted her to teach him and had wound up knowing more than the teacher. Not only that, he had given himself over to cryptanalysis as if nothing else existed. Sure, it was important to try to transcend context in your activities, but that did not mean losing sight of it entirely.
She argues with Miguel in silence. She has done this so often before that she knows the exchange of opinions by heart, the veiled accusations and the surprising firmness of the replies. Over the past few months she has had the courage to tell him to his face, but maybe she waited too long, until the intense grumbling of unspoken phrases had already resulted in irrevocable damage. Today's gesture is not enough to counteract the accumulated anger and bitterness or to put their lives on course again, propped up as they are, heading steadily into the abyss.
Exhausted, she sleeps. It will be a fitful night: she will be woken several times because of the children or her cellmates crying. Fatigue will help her to fall back asleep quickly. She will have nightmares—the bloody waters of the Fugitivo River carrying her manuscript away, or she will want to read a book, only to discover that it has been written in a code incomprehensible to her.
The next day, in the afternoon, the mustached officer approaches the cell door and calls her name. She stands up, surprised. The other women bang on the bars, begging to be let free. The police officer opens the door and tells Ruth to follow him.
She crosses the threshold. The pale light filtering in through a window hurts her eyes. Only then does she realize that her cell had been in utter darkness and that she had had to strain to make out the faces and silhouettes of her cellmates.
She looks at the rain outside the window, trying to find beauty in the falling raindrops that cut the day into parallel lines.
"Hurry up," the officer says, grumbling. "The chief needs to speak with you."
Chapter 34
RAMÍREZ-GRAHAM IS DRINKING a cup of black coffee in his office. He has finished reading the files that he took out of the archives. He learned little about Albert but much about Turing. What he knows saddens him. He had better leave politics as soon as possible and get back to his algorithms. He has to escape from the Black Chamber.
Baez calls him. "Boss, I need you to come to the Security Room right away." Ramírez-Graham does not feel like moving. Baez thinks everything is urgent.
"Anything to do with Turing's daughter?"
He spoke with her a few hours ago. Then he had spoken with Moreiras, the head of the SIN in Rio Fugitivo. A few minutes ago Moreiras had called him with information. There were only a few houses like the one they were looking for near San Ignacio—it was basically an upper-middle-class neighborhood. However, he had good news: they had discovered that the family in one of those houses, which was also a mechanic's shop, didn't know where to find their oldest son, a young man of about twenty. Could it be that the circle was finally closing?
"No, but everything to do with our Turing," Baez replies.
Ramírez-Graham stands up angrily. It is impossible to have a minute's rest at the Black Chamber. He had been able to relax more in his office at the NSA, even though he had more work. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that he was not the boss at the NSA and could shirk his responsibilities for a few minutes. Perhaps it was another cultural difference: in Rio Fugitivo no one seemed capable of making a decision. Ramírez-Graham even had to sign the orders for the monthly allotment of toilet paper for the
building. While Baez was one of his most capable and independent subordinates, Ramírez-Graham now thinks that he should actually have reprimanded him at the beginning for not consulting him when the matter of the Resistance first exploded. Baez had wanted to take care of Kandinsky himself, as if he were a minor problem, and had failed to highlight the seriousness of the situation until two weeks after the first attack on the government sites, when he was left no choice. Still, that frustrated act of independence had won him points in Ramírez-Graham's eyes and turned Baez into one of his most trusted men. It had caused rumblings in the hallways: Baez had been at the Black Chamber only a little over three months when he was promoted to the Central Committee.
The Security Room houses the monitors for the closed-circuit system that surveils the building and surrounding areas. Baez is leaning over the shoulder of one of the guards. Ramírez-Graham takes a Starburst out of his pants pocket and approaches them. His gaze rests on what they are watching: Turing, yes, Turing, searching through the files in what Ramírez-Graham calls the Archive of Archives, the small area to which only he has authorized access. It must be frustrating for someone in charge of the archives to have an inaccessible island within reach in the midst of that enormous ocean of documentation. What a temptation, as well, to see what is hidden there, to discover the beginning, the creation myth of the Black Chamber.
The creation myth: Ramírez-Graham had better speak with Turing. He had better reveal the real Albert, the real Black Chamber to him. It would hurt, but someone had to do it. Such daring in that insidious plan. Truly impressive. And it was true: as a professor of his used to say, if your ideas aren't daring, then why have them? But it should not therefore be concluded that daring justifies sacrificing the truth.
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