by Tim Maughan
“Scott! Listen to me! I didn’t touch the fucking photos! There’s a problem with the server, that’s all. Didn’t you have them backed up locally anyway?” He knows, the second the last word leaves his mouth, that it’s the wrong thing to have said.
“FUCK YOU! I KNEW YOU’D SAY THAT!” They’ve had a few blowouts, but this is the most angry Rush has ever heard Scott. “I knew you’d say that! I knew you’d say where are your backups! I knew you would! You’re so fucking predictable—”
“Scott—”
“You’re so fucking predictable, I knew this was all some fucking bullshit way of making a point! You’re—I’m so fucking sick of y—”
And then Scott’s voice is gone, replaced by low buzzing, echoing clicks.
“Scott!?”
Jesus fucking Christ, has he hung up on him? Has he actually hung up on him?
He blinks at the phone icon, tries to restart the call
but then
everything freezes
and all is glitch.
He rips the spex from his face.
Sound fills the space around his head like air rushing back into a vacuum. Like some TV show cliché, an audio signifier that something terrible has happened, incessant car horns blend with endless burglar alarms. But the noise seems to be the only thing that’s in motion, the Bristol that surrounds him seems to have crashed, as stuck and frozen as the spex that hang limply from his hand. Driverless traffic is gridlocked, crossing lights dead-eyed. The LCD billboard that makes up most of a nearby bus stop is looping static, gray through white digital snow, as the confused commuters sheltering in it gawp at their own now-useless spex in their hands, or crane to stare down the endless procession of motionless traffic, scanning for a bus that’ll never come.
“Fucking hell,” Rush hears himself say, out loud.
Something flips in the pit of his stomach.
He slips his spex back on, but it’s still all just glitch in that space, the only motion a few flickering pixels amid the distorted interface, stretched and blurred like it’s been smeared, greasily, across the plastic lenses.
He takes them off, looks around again, finds himself laughing. Goose bumps ripple across his arms. He’d seen this coming: his obsessive poring over news speculation and social media around recent network outages and massive denial-of-service attacks meant he’d been expecting something to hit locally any day. But this is different, he can feel it—see it—just by looking around. This isn’t a targeted attack on some corporate brand or platform, or even a strike against essential infrastructure—this is an attack on everything, a switch-flick, a purposeful turning off. It’s like the Croft has exploded out of its boundaries and absorbed everything, a growing bubble that has purged the surrounding city of data and pushed back the insidious, invading fingers of the network.
It’s exciting. Like that night in Times Square, nearly two months ago now, when the lights went out and the screens died, and for a few long minutes everyone cheered in the dark, celebrating being free of surveillance and the pressure to be always connected. It takes him right back there, standing in the dark in that disconnected crowd, scarf wrapped around his face, fighting a wave of panic and euphoria, until Scott grabbed his hand and pulled him close.
Except Scott can’t grab his hand now.
Because Scott isn’t here.
Scott is three thousand miles away.
And the network that keeps him close just vanished.
* * *
As he crosses the digital perimeter into the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft his spex bleep into life again, a window flashing across his vision asking if he wants to install the Flex software needed to join the MESH network. Good. It was always meant to work like this; he’d built it from Cuban code that resurrected and repurposed devices that had been remotely bricked by governments or corporations. It’s rewarding, vindicating, to see it working in a real-world scenario. Even if the worm or virus that seemed to be taking everything down carried on spreading, perhaps the Croft’s network could stay up.
Up in their server room in the 5102 he thumbs on monitors and drops himself down in front of the computers. Although connected to the Internet outside the Croft by wired connection, they still seem to be running fine; their custom OS is built on the same code that runs the spex network, and seems to be resilient to attacks for now. Plus he’s poured years of work into security systems to protect them from exactly this. They’re getting a hammering, though—just glancing at his diagnostics software he can see unprecedented levels of network traffic trying to break in, and he doesn’t need to check IP or MAC addresses to know where it’s coming from. Spex, self-driving cars, smart lightbulbs, toys, fridges, security cameras—it’s coming from everywhere, everything and anything with a connection is pumping data into the network, flooding it. It’s not being targeted at the Croft, either, it’s being targeted at everything. He’s seen this before, in the countless analyses he’s read of all the major outages over the last few weeks, starting with Times Square: something is spreading, hijacking any and all Internet-connected devices it finds, and as it does, it floods the network with data—a distributed-denial-of-service attack without a specified target, apparently aimed at bringing the whole connected world to its knees.
Rush finds himself paralyzed at first, unable to react apart from staring at the screens. It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time, the kind of massive disruption he’d dreamed of for years, a victory for everything they believed in, the final loosening of the steel grip in which corporate capitalism and authoritarian governments have held the Internet for decades.
And yet fear and anxiety crush his celebrations. Not just fear of what comes next, but fear of having to accept a loss he hasn’t prepared for, a situation his custom software can’t counter.
All he can think of is Scott. Fucking Scott. Scott, who’s not here, who’s three thousand miles away. Scott, whom he’s not seen in the flesh for nearly two months. Scott, who was yelling at him the last time they spoke.
Skype, Hangouts, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Signal, Gmail. Every channel he tries to open fails to connect, hangs, leaves him staring at pointless spinning disks and error messages. Somewhere, behind his screens, out past the protective barriers of the Croft, the Internet is melting, and the distance between Scott and him grows ever farther.
He stands up, screams silently to himself, paces the room, takes breaths. Knows what he must do. Sits down at the computer again.
The British Airways website is down, the United one failing to load anything past the logo. The Delta site seems to be working fine, though. With frantic clicks he grabs the first seat he can, tomorrow night, horrifically overpriced, Heathrow to Newark. No idea how he’ll get to the fucking airport, but that can wait for now.
He enters his credit card details, address, as if on autopilot. It wants his passport number, so he has to dig in a nearby drawer to uncover the tattered, creased leather booklet. He taps it in. Hits SUBMIT.
Waits.
His conscience squirms at the back of his skull. Running out on the Croft now might seem harsh, but it’ll survive. College can handle the tech, Anika the people. Claire will make sure the farms keep running. They’re grown-ups. They don’t need him.
He’s not sure he’s convincing himself.
Waits. Fingers drumming the desk.
Besides, he might be a liability if he stays around here. If the authorities start pointing fingers.
And this might be his last chance to get back to Scott.
The screen goes blank.
And then refreshes.
Red text on white, hard to read. The cold, polite authority of faceless automation.
IMPORTANT
A problem has been encountered with your travel documentation.
The passport(s) numbers you have provided have been determined as invalid for travel. This may be due to increased security concerns at the present time, or may be an indication that the passport(s) you and
your party are attempting to use to travel have been canceled by the issuer.
Please contact your local passport-issuing organization for more details.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
“No fucking way,” Rush says.
It might be an error. It might be that the computers are fucked because, well, all the computers are fucked. It might be, like it says, because of increased security concerns.
But Rush knows it isn’t any of those fucking things. They’ve canceled his fucking passport. They’ve been watching him for years, watching the Croft and everything he does here, putting him on lists and labeling him an enemy, waiting for something like this to happen.
It suddenly feels like the room, its cracked plaster walls and server racks, is collapsing in on top of him, broken masonry and ceiling tiles crushing his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs in huge, heavy sobs. And for unmeasured minutes that’s all he can do: sit and cry. Tears roll down his checks and his hands as he covers his face, his shoulders shuddering. So much seems lost. His freedom. His movement. The little semblance of control he still held on to. Scott.
Eventually he looks up, into the black pit of the monitor, at numbers flashing, data traffic spiraling, confused panic rolling across the few remaining timelines, the Internet melting away.
He pulls himself together. He has contingency plans to put in place. He’d planned for this. If they think he’s involved, then they’ll come for him. If they’re going to come and drag him off to some rendition site, then he wants evidence, witnesses, some narrative left behind that isn’t theirs. They’ll be here soon. Best be ready.
He opens a terminal window, types secret commands and passwords. Text appears, text he wrote himself.
REPUBLIC OF STOKES CROFT—EMERGENCY SURVEILLANCE PROCEDURE
Activating this procedure will trigger full recording of all activity occurring within the SC zone and all data broadcast across the SC network. Data will be archived not only on SC servers but also on individual users’ devices.
IMPORTANT! The data recorded is not limited to digital transmissions! It will record audio and video data collected by all devices connected to the network! THIS IS A TOTAL SURVEILLANCE PROCEDURE and should be limited only to EMERGENCY situations, such as natural disasters, the infiltration of the network/SC by security or law enforcement agencies, or any other kind of physical or network assault upon SC and its inhabitants.
THIS IS A LAST-RESORT PROCEDURE AND SHOULD BE ACTIVATED ONLY UNDER AGREEMENT OF THE SENIOR MEMBERS OF THE REPUBLIC OF STOKES CROFT STEERING COMMITTEE.
Do you want to activate the Emergency Surveillance Procedure? Y/N
Rush takes a breath.
With a couple of simple keyboard strokes he could betray everything he stands for, everything he’d built here. He could turn his little oasis of digital freedom into a tiny but highly efficient surveillance state. All on the off chance it might save his ass when the authorities come knocking, give him and the others some leverage when the shit really hits the fan.
He snorts to himself. When he’d written the code, he’d found the irony delicious—that he’d built into his utopian experiment the same moral dilemma every state faces, whether to trade freedom for some sense of security, to put power into the hands of a few on the trust that it wouldn’t be misused.
Now, staring at the screen, he realizes he’s no closer to having an answer.
He types “Y,” hits RETURN.
And then it floods him again, that huge wave of loss and panic flowing over him. The realization that whatever plans he’d made for dealing with the end of the world as he knows it, there was no plan for dealing with being separated from the one person that really, truly mattered to him.
Out of desperation he tries apps and websites again. All pointlessly. Nothing but blank screens and error messages. Everything is fucked, everything is dying.
And then it happens. Gmail loads in front of him, his in-box slowly rendering itself on screen. Google. Those motherfuckers. If anyone can keep their servers running while the rest of the Internet is aflame, it’s them. They practically are the Internet.
He hits COMPOSE, taps out a message.
Baby!
Oh god I hope you’re okay. Don’t know what’s happening over there but it’s all going down here. Something big. It’s why I can’t get hold of you, why those photos were missing.
I’ve no idea if you’ll get this. Or how long it’ll take to get to you. I just want you to know I’m thinking of you. I’ll be trying to contact you constantly. And if that doesn’t work I’ll find some way to get to you. To be with you. To hold you.
I promise.
I love you.
He stares at the last line.
He deletes it.
Pauses.
Types it again.
Hits SEND.
Nothing happens.
Then the screen goes blank, the white space of an empty browser window.
He panics.
Hits REFRESH.
Words appear.
ERROR
You Are Not Connected to the Internet
This page cannot be displayed because you are currently offline.
14. AFTER
She wasn’t sure the girl would come.
She looks anxious, standing in this abandoned room, her eyes shifting nervously from corner to corner. She’s really young, she sees now. Younger than she’d initially thought. There’s no way she could remember anything that had happened here.
“Come, sit.” She gestures at the dusty floor in front of where she’s sitting.
“I’m fine standing. Really.”
Anika smiles, tilts her head. “It’s Mary, right?” She hopes she’s got that right.
“Yeah.”
“Come and sit, Mary, please. It’s fine. I just want to talk to you.”
The girl shuffles forward awkwardly and sits, legs crossed. Her eyes continue to shift around the room, unable to meet Anika’s.
“Give me your sp—” Anika pauses, corrects herself. “Give me your glasses.”
“What? No, I—”
“It’s fine, really. It’s fine. Relax. I only need them for a few minutes. I just want to look at them, try them on. Then I’ll give them right back to you. I promise.”
Mary says nothing, just stares at the floor.
“It’s fine, really. You can trust me.”
The girl’s eyes rise to hers, finally. With paint-stained hands she slips the glasses from her face, and with slow deliberation hands them over.
“Thank you.”
Anika scratches away paint with the nail of her right thumb, Technicolor dust raining from the spex’s arm, catching sunlight filtering in through shattered walls and sparkling like air-suspended pixels. She uncovers ten tiny hidden LEDs, the only outward sign that they’re any more than just a regular pair of glasses, six of which glow green as she squeezes them. Sixty percent charged. The girl must have a charging mat hidden away somewhere, a basic, dumb one without a Net connection. She can picture it, plastic third-party wiring embedded in crappy Chinese fabric, close to twenty years old but still working. Not so dumb now.
She turns the spex over and over in her hands, suddenly scared to put them on. Scared to breathe life into this room, high in the top of the 5102, which has apparently lain dead for the last ten years. And so it should have done. As she looks around it, at the now-graffiti-soaked walls, at the chipped and shattered plaster, she can see the ghosts already. Feel them, their breath on the back of her neck. Feel the love and the passion and the anger and the betrayal. Too much, already.
Someone has blitzed through the room, or perhaps multiple people over various stages, ripping plaster apart to yank wires from walls, leaving their own layer of daubed scrawls as payment. She sits cross-legged amid the shrapnel of smashed furniture, leftovers too measly to burn, and gets that all-too-familiar sensation of being in the ruins of a dead civilization. Relics of the obsolete, like the weathered wa
lls of Machu Picchu or the liquefying concrete of Detroit’s car factories.
She tilts her head back, skull against cold exposed brick, and takes a deep breath. Reluctantly she slips the spex onto her face.
Nothing at first, just minor glitch. Random puddles of pixelated reality pulse and slither across the floor. The spex are messed up; no wonder the girl didn’t have a clue what was going on. From what Anika can gather she had little control over what she saw, things just appearing to her like random visions, hence all the mystical bullshit. Mainly because the motion tracking is so badly aligned that the UI is barely readable, hovering forever just out of peripheral view. But Anika knows some old tricks, knows what she’s doing—knows Rush’s bespoke OS, cobbled together in this very room, like the back of her hand.
Patiently she blinks through malformed menus. She teases faux reality into perspective, the spex’s still functioning LIDAR scan of the room calibrated to fit across the geometry of the actual. No more double images, no more disturbing misalignment, no scrabbling around in the unseen for the UI. Normal function returns, and with it the strange dread of the mundane.
Most of the spex’s functions are dead, pointless, having purpose only when there’s a network to attach to, peers to talk with. Resignedly she scans the local area for other nodes, knowing full well what results will come back. Text floats in the air in front of her face, at the focal point between her and the girl.
No other users detected in range.
Find friends in your neighbourhood to talk and share with!
One of a kind, the last working spex in the Croft.
She slips them off again, smiles at the girl.
“One last thing I need to try, and then you can have your glasses back. Okay?”
“I know they’re called spex, you know. I’m not stupid.”