The Labyrinth Key

by Howard V. Hendrix

  “I was, I admit it,” Don said, nodding but feeling his face grow warm. “Would have been good money, too. But then I had second thoughts, and someone or something up the chain of command found out. Killed my application. This has nothing to do with that.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, leaning back from their huddled conversation. “You know what I think? I think you look terrible! All pale and strung out, like you haven’t been sleeping, or eating properly.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it, either,” Don said, glancing away, out the front window. “I didn’t come here to discuss my health.”

  “Oh?” she asked, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. “Then what are we here to discuss?”

  He paused, framing his words carefully. “State security operations, past and present. The kind of stuff most people just shrug off as garden-variety conspiracy theories.”

  Karuna eyed him narrowly.

  “And why should we talk about that?”

  “Because believe it or not, we’ve already been suckered into getting involved. Though I think Medea went willingly.”

  “Yeah?” she said, beginning to sound peeved. “How so?”

  “Remember when NSA used its Echelon systems to suck up everybody’s private data, and how that led to the development of secure message cylinders? Or how Operation Shamrock covertly monitored international telegrams sent from the US—for decades?”

  “Come on, Don! That’s old news!”

  “Or the Pentagon’s plan,” he continued, undaunted, “to launch a wave of violent terrorism in D.C., Miami, and New York—Operation Northwoods, the Joint Chiefs called it. American operatives secretly killing scores of American citizens and framing the Cubans for it, just so the generals could gain international support for a war against Castro.”

  Karuna shook her head, making her beaded braids click like an upended rainstick.

  “During the Kennedy administration! Ancient history. And they never pulled it off.”

  “No,” Don continued, “but what about MK Ultra? The CIA covertly testing LSD and dozens of other psychoactive substances on unknowing, innocent civilians?”

  “That’s not even news anymore,” Karuna replied dismissively. “More ancient history.”

  “But do you think it’s stopped?”

  “Do I think what has stopped?”

  “Do you think the government and corporations have stopped using us all as guinea pigs, without our knowledge or consent? Do you?”

  “Don, this is way off the deep end,” she said, so perfunctorily as to cut off any response. “And it’s got nothing to do with you, or me, or Medea. You’re creeping me out.”

  Don took a slug of strong coffee before answering.

  “It’s got a helluva lot to do with us, actually. You remember what Kwok’s holo-cast said? About ‘little cellular mechanics’ diagnosing and repairing cell and tissue damage? About an ‘infertility-inducing virus’?”

  “I vaguely recall some such weirdness, yes.”

  “I think that ‘weirdness’ is the reason NSA came after us in Cybernesia. Kwok’s ’cast talked about reality as a simulation. About universal memory palaces and godlike minds. I think Jaron stumbled onto something much bigger than he expected. Something they didn’t want him to have.”

  Karuna sipped at her coffee, staring down into the mug, then back at Don.

  “Such as?”

  “A program called Tetragrammaton. The wellness plague and infertility virus are part of Tetra. I think the holo-cast was Kwok’s attempt to get the word out.”

  “Got to be easier ways than that to send a message,” Karuna said, shaking her head doubtfully.

  “Not if he had to send the message, and hide it at the same time. When I was in Medea-Indahar’s virtuality, though—that was the tip-off. M-I was running some sort of Kabbalah-math program on Tetragrammaton.”

  Karuna took another sip of coffee, then pulled her stare out of her mug and again focused it onto his.

  “All right,” she said, “I’ll bite. What on Earth is Tetragrammaton?”

  “Originally, the four-letter Hebrew name for God. Either IHVH, or YHWH, or JHVH, or YHVH, depending on which orthography you follow. Yod heh vav heh. Jehovah, Yahweh. Connected to the ‘Ein Sof’ or Infinite in the Kabbalah, the point at infinity, beyond but also containing the sefirot, the qualities or ‘countings’ of the divine. I don’t know if this new context is a joke or not. Regardless, it’s the strange attractor underlying all the apocalyptic chaos in Kwok’s holo-cast.”

  “Whoa,” Karuna said. “You’ve lost me. What’s the Kabbalistic word for God got to do with Kwok’s virtuality? And what’s this ‘new context’?”

  Don leaned forward again, speaking more quietly, yet more hurriedly, the latest caffeine jolt propelling his end of the conversation.

  “I’ve been contacted by an anonymous benefactor. Someone who’s seen my encryption software, and become aware of what I’ve been researching. They gave me access codes that led me to some very interesting places in the infosphere.”

  “And?”

  “And near as I can figure—from data I’ve found on the conspiracy fringes—the Tetragrammaton program began as long-term survival studies started by various intelligence agencies during the Cold War. It may be older, I’m not sure. What I do know is that everybody seemed to be working on a version of it. The American CIA and DIA. The British SIS and MI6. The French DGSE, German BND, Israeli Mossad. Guoanbu in China, GRU and KGB and their successors in Russia. You name it, they all had in-house forerunners. Studying scenarios and contingencies.”

  “For what?”

  “Human survival—in the context of the nuclear arms race, at first,” Don said, stirring his coffee. “Later, when nuclear war looked less likely, the focus shifted to our boom/bust potential.”

  “Our what?”

  “Our potential for causing environmental collapse. Too many babies, too many demands on Mother Earth. That’s where Medea-Indahar came in.”

  “And Tetrawhozit is related—how?” Karuna asked. Don thought she was going for disinterested cynicism, but failing.

  “The Tetragrammaton program evolved from all those studies by all the different agencies, and over time, the program itself became postpolitical. Today no single government or corporation is fully in control. It’s got a seemingly legit front-group, too—the Tetragrammaton Consortium. This allows it to hide out in the open now. Lots of corporate sponsors. They even have a website, but it won’t tell you much.”

  Don paused while Karuna slowly sipped her coffee.

  “And exactly what does this ‘Consortium’ do?” she asked at last.

  “Publicly, they’re a high-tech love feast. A super–brain trust, with lots of support from infotech businesses and firms. Supposedly they’re working toward nonimmunogenic implants to achieve a seamless mind/machine linkage. To foster a cyborgized, ‘posthuman’ humanity.”

  “That doesn’t sound so threatening,” Karuna said, sitting back and leaning her chin into the palm of her right hand. “You could argue we’re already headed there anyway.”

  “Right, but—”

  “But privately, they’re this long-term human-survival think tank. Is that what you’re saying? I’m sorry, Don. The idea of a group trying to prevent humanity from doing the lemming dive off the big cliff doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me.”

  “On the surface, no,” Don agreed, sipping nervously at his coffee. “Covertly, though, they’ve done much more questionable things.”

  “Do tell.”

  Don ignored her unhelpful sarcasm.

  “For starters, taking traits from so-called immortalized cancer cells, vectoring them into human cells, then putting the whole complex to work against aging. At the same time, projects to radically decrease birthrates through biotechnical means. Sound familiar?”

  “Only from that Kwok ’cast,” Karuna said with a sniff of disdain.

  “Well, there’s more. Bizarre, Mengele-style
stuff. Long-term twin studies, inducing ‘dissociative identity disorders.’ Paying ob-gyns to pump expectant mothers with biochemicals during their first trimester. Without mentioning it to the patients, of course. Covert projects for manipulating what goes on inside the womb, mostly in the hope of activating ‘latent’ paranormal talents in the offspring.”

  “Whoa—again,” Karuna said, shaking her head and rattling her beads. “That’s taking it way too far. Why would anyone want to warp kids in the womb, even supposing they could?”

  “It’s all in the name of humanity,” Don insisted. “In the old days, no ‘atrocity’ was considered inexcusable—as long as it was performed in the name of national security. Think how much more justifiable even greater atrocities become when they’re being carried out in the name of human survival!”

  Don paused, and watched as Karuna finished her coffee, then set the empty cup aside.

  “You’ve lost me again. What could they hope to accomplish with these implants and in utero manipulations?”

  “The fostering of paranormal abilities,” Don said, wondering if speaking too quietly might also attract attention. “Mind/machine interfacing. Computer-aided psychokinesis. Electronically mediated simultaneity.”

  “For what purpose?” Karuna asked, sounding strangely calm now. To Don it seemed as if her cynicism was shading into a pitying sadness. He really hated that.

  “To thoroughly entangle human and machine intelligence. To create tesseractors, human beings who can fold and tear the fabric of reality. For years Tetra’s been working on a mathematical model for a simulated quantum information density structure. A gateway singularity into and through the fabric of space-time. This stuff makes nukes look like Fourth of July firecrackers.”

  “It’s impossible,” Karuna said firmly. “That’s like claiming you’ve got a wormhole generator in your back pocket.”

  “No, it’s not impossible. The holographic principle from quantum gravity theory restricts the amount of information a given region of space-time can contain: one bit of information per quantum of area, 10-35 meters on a side. But if you bust the bandwidth limitation of the universe, you can create the gateway.”

  Karuna stared. He was losing her.

  “Where is all this coming from?”

  Don finished the last of his coffee. Having been wired up for days, he hardly needed it.

  “I already told you. I’ve been doing my research, with a little help from some friendly strangers.”

  “Your ‘anonymous benefactors’?”

  “Right. It’s all out there, if you know where to look. All it takes is putting the pieces together.”

  Karuna stared so hard at him that it was all Don could do to keep from cringing beneath her gaze.

  “That’s the part that scares me,” she said, her look softening at last. “You’re talking like you’ve been spending way too much time on the fringe. Too much of the web is dedicated to rumor and stupidity. And what do you really know about this ‘anonymous benefactor’? How much of what you’re telling me has even the vaguest link with reality?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don, you know you’re a pattern phreak—”

  “If you think I’m acting paranoid, or schizophrenic,” he said, suddenly annoyed, “then just say it.”

  “All right then. It sounds like your mental elevator has lost its brake and is dropping straight to hell. Pull out of it, already! You’ve been at this for—what, weeks? Are you sure what you think you’re seeing is really there?”

  Don laughed.

  “I know the old joke. ‘Everybody sees patterns—paranoids just see patterns that aren’t really there.’ Apophenia. That’s what the power players count on: the fact that their lies are almost easier to believe than the truth. But there’s another cliché: Just ’cause you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Whatever this is about, they killed Kwok to cover it up.”

  “None of what you’ve been talking about is worth killing over.”

  “Oh no? Tell that to the guy in the coroner’s office they offed because he was working with Kwok’s ashes!”

  Reaching across the table and gripping his hand gently, Karuna seemed not to have heard the last part.

  “Maybe, after dealing with Medea’s crazy simulations,” she said quietly, “with the way she/he melts away all the old binary opposites—male/female, good/evil, reality/fantasy—maybe you’re suffering from some sort of meltdown. Maybe that’s why you blame Medea. And maybe Tetragrammaton is just a symbol, too. A metaphor for whatever it is that’s really getting to you.”

  Don pulled his hand away, and stood to leave.

  “Don’t try to explain it away as some homosexual panic attack!

  “Look, Kari, all I’m really asking is that you look into what I’m telling you, before you write me off as a complete lunatic. But be careful, whatever you do. If it turns out I’m right, we stand to piss off some very powerful people.”

  “All right, I’ll look into it,” she conceded. Don was disappointed to see that she didn’t get up from her chair to leave with him. “And I’ll be careful—though of what, I have no idea. So what are you going to do, now?”

  Don glanced around the coffee shop again. He leaned toward her and answered in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

  “I’m thinking of going to Philadelphia.”

  “Why there?” Karuna asked, refusing to lower her voice.

  “There’s a painting there I want to see.”

  “What painting’s that?”

  Don took an old-fashioned notebook from his pocket.

  “Portrait of a Gentleman, most likely a scholar or nobleman, approximately thirty years of age. Oil on canvas, painted around 1520, probably by Dosso Dossi. Accession: J #251, in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

  “That’s pretty specific,” Karuna said, looking worried again. “Why that one?”

  “Because I found it embedded in Kwok’s holo-cast. After I cleaned up the audio, I wondered if there might be other material, buried in the visual content.”

  “And there was.”

  “I found an image of that painting, among the bank of electron micrographs that the characters watch at one point. Totally out of place. Kwok’s image has something not in the original painting, too. A metasteganograph.”

  “A what?”

  “A steganograph hides information by embedding it inside other information, right? Well, the painting’s presence in the holo-cast is steganographic, but what I found was embedded in the painting. Metasteganographic.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “I beefed up a program for detecting and decrypting digital watermarks, applied it to the image of the painting, and it popped right up. The meta’s a sort of deep content-labeling—robust, persistent, and very unobtrusive, but not in any way intended to prevent further copying. Whoever made it wanted it to be found, but not easily.”

  “But what is it?”

  “An allegory to be unveiled only to the initiated,” he said, referring to his notebook once more. “A steganographic caption across the bottom, computationally cloaked, which uncloaked reads, ‘HKEDKJSAJD;OKGHFKJ;OAKJSKGHF.’”

  “That’s uncloaked?” Karuna asked, incredulous. “Sounds like gibberish to me.”

  “Not if you run a Fahrney keyboard transposition on it. Then it says ‘Hide insane plight in plain sight’! Think about that, Kari—then think about Tetragrammaton.”

  “I’m thinking, Don, that I’m not following you. Again.”

  “In the holo-cast, everything was happening on the edge of global catastrophe. Earthquakes, apocalyptic meltdowns. Intensified that way, Kwok’s scenarios are easy to interpret. They represent our ‘insane plight’ as a species.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lemmings aren’t really suicidal—just short-sighted. Like us.”

  “But Don, what if all that’s just some sort of warped personal reference?” she
said, almost too quietly, too gently.

  “For Kwok—or for me? I know what you’re thinking, Karuna. Nevertheless, we created the hack that helped Jaron do whatever it was he was doing. You and me. Regardless of where this is coming from, we’re a part of it. And the only way to separate reality from insanity is to find out what Jaron Kwok found out.”

  “Then you’re the one who’d better be careful,” Karuna said, her eyes focused firmly on the tabletop and away from him. “Promise me?”

  “I promise,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it lightly before he turned to go. Don didn’t look back over his shoulder as he walked away.

  PLAUSIBLY DENIABLE COINCIDENCE

  GUANGZHOU

  Mei-lin Lu, Derek Ma, and Paul Kao stood in front of the octagonal Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall on Dongfeng Road. Built on the original site of Sun Yat-sen’s office when he was China’s provisional president, the ornate blue-roofed building reminded Mei-lin of a three-tiered blue umbrella. Today it stood open against a brilliantly clear sky that posed no threat of rain. A group had just finished touring the grounds and was lining up to leave, but a few visitors lingered. The Hall itself, however, was closed to the public for repairs. A few construction workers moved in and around the scaffolding on the north side, dressed in gritty jeans and cheap camo pants.

  “Let me guess,” said Ma, a forensic computer technician and image analyst with Lu’s department. He was there to record images of the Memorial Hall as part of Lu’s ongoing investigation into the Kwok incident. “We’re here because of what I found in that holo-cast you gave me.”

  Paul Kao, Derek’s assistant, already had his camera out. He was panning the grounds as they walked, looking like an overweight over-eager videographer with his golfer’s blue sun visor spun upside down and sideways on his head, in an outdated fashion Lu found vaguely irritating.

  “Exactly,” said Detective Lu as they walked past the garden beds surrounding the hall. In her more paranoid moments, Mei-lin had wondered if Ma—who seemed far too suave to be a tech—might be a Guoanbu operative assigned to her by Wong. Kao, very bright but not particularly interested in personal hygiene, more easily fit Lu’s experience with techies.