Fifty Degrees Below

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. As sure as I can be.” She shivered.

  He held her by the arm. “You’re not chipped?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Neither of us are.”

  She took a wand from her pocket, checked them both. No clicks. They walked under the cherry trees, dark overhead against the city’s night cloud. There were a few solitaries out, mostly runners, then another couple, possibly trysting like Frank and Caroline.

  “How can you stand it?” Frank said.

  “How does anybody stand it? We’re all chipped.”

  “But most people no one wants to trace.”

  “I don’t know. The banks want to know. That means most people.” She shrugged; it happened to everyone, that’s just the way things were now. Best not to want privacy.

  But now, under the cherry trees, they were alone. No cars, no chips, phones left in their cars. They were off the net. No one else in the world knew where they were at that moment. It was somewhat like being in their little bubble universe of passion. A walking version of that union. Frank felt her upper arm press against his, felt the flushing in all his skin, the quickened pulse. It must be love, he thought. Even with Marta it had never been like this. Or was it perhaps just the element of danger that seemed to envelop her? Or the mysterious nature of that danger?

  They sat on one of the benches overlooking the Tidal Basin. For a while they kissed. The feeling that poured through Frank then had less to do with their caresses, ravishing as they were, than with the sense of sharing a feeling; the opening up to one another, the vulnerability of giving and receiving. Very possibly, Frank thought in one of their hard silent hugs, their histories had caused them both to want this feeling of commitment more than anything else. After all the bad that had happened, a way to be with someone, to let down one’s guard, to inhabit a shared space. . . . Them against the world. Or outside the world. Maybe she was like him in this: that she needed a partner. He could not be certain. But it felt like it.

  She curled against him. Frank warmed to her manner, her physical grace, her affection. It was different with her, it just was.

  But she wasn’t free. Her situation was compromised, even scary. She was breaking promises both personal and professional. That in itself didn’t bother Frank as perhaps it should have, because she was doing it for him, and because of him; so how could he fault her for it? Especially since she also made him feel that somehow he deserved these moves, that she liked him for real reasons. That she was right to do what she was doing, because of the way he was to her. Reciprocity: hard to believe; but there she was, in his arms.

  The world seeped back. A distant streetlight winked on the breeze.

  “You’re staying with those friends again?”

  She nodded into his shoulder. Her body felt like she was falling asleep. He found this very moving; he could not remember the last time a woman had fallen asleep in his arms. He thought: maybe this is what it would be like. You would only ever know by doing it.

  “Hey gal. What if one of your friends wakes up in the night?”

  “I leave a note on the couch, saying that I couldn’t sleep and went for a run.”

  “Ah.”

  It was interesting to think of friends who would believe that, and what it said about her.

  “But I should start back in a while.”

  “Damn.”

  She sighed. “We need to talk.”

  “Good.”

  “Tell me—do you think elections matter?”

  “What? Well, sure. I mean, what do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you think they really matter?”

  “Hmmm,” Frank said.

  “Because I’m not sure they do. I think they’re just a kind of theater, you know, designed to distract people from how things are really decided.”

  “You sound like some of my colleagues at work.”

  “I’m being very scientific, I’m sure.” Her smile was brief and perfunctory. “You know this futures market I’m supervising?”

  “Sure. What, are they betting on the election now?”

  “Of course, but you can do that anywhere. What my group is betting on has more to do with potential side-effects of the election. Or, now I’m thinking it’s more like causes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are people who can have an influence on the results.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like, a group involved with voting-machine technology.”

  “Uh oh. You mean like tweaking them somehow?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So your futures market is now going bullish on certain people involved with voting technology?”

  “That’s right. And not only that, but some of those people are my husband and his colleagues.”

  “He’s not doing what you’re doing?”

  “Not anymore. He’s moved again, and his new job is part of this stuff. This group may even be the originators of it.”

  “A government agency working on fixing elections? How can that be?”

  “That’s the way it’s evolved. The voting system is vulnerable to tampering, so there are agencies trying to figure out every way it can happen, so they can counter them. They pass that up the chain to be used, and then one of the more politicized agencies takes that information and makes sure it gets into the right hands at the right time. And there you have it.”

  “You sound like it’s happened already before?”

  “I think the Cleland Senate loss in Georgia looks very suspicious.”

  “How come that isn’t a huge scandal?”

  “The best evidence is in a classified study. Meanwhile, since it’s been a rumor, it’s treated like all the other rumors, many of which are wrong. So actually, to have the idea of something broached without any subsequent repercussion is actually a kind of, what. A kind of inoculation for an event you don’t want investigated.”

  “Jesus. So how does it work, do you know?”

  “Not the technical details, no. I know they target certain counties in swing states. They use various statistical models and decision-tree algorithms to pick which ones, and how much to intervene.”

  “I’d like to see this algorithm.”

  “Yes, I thought you might.” She reached into her purse, pulled out a data disk in a paper sleeve. She handed it to him. “This is it.”

  “Whoah,” Frank said, staring at it. “And so . . . What should I do with it?”

  “I thought you might have some friends at NSF who might be able to put it to use.”

  “Shit. I don’t know.”

  She watched him take it in.

  “Do you think it matters?” she asked again.

  “What, who wins the election, or whether there’s cheating?”

  “Both. Either.”

  “Well. I should think election fraud is always bad.”

  “I suppose.”

  “How could it not be?”

  “I don’t know. It’s seems like it’s been mostly cheating for a while now. Or theater at best. Distracting people from where the decisions are really made.”

  “But something like this would be more than theater.”

  “So you think it does matter.”

  “Well . . . yeah.” Frank was a little shocked that she would even wonder about it. “It’s the law. I mean, the rule of law. Lawful practice.”

  “I suppose so.” She shrugged. “I mean, here I am giving this to you, so I must think so too. So, well—can you help fix it?”

  He hefted the CD in its sleeve. “Fix the fix?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to, sure. I don’t know if I can.”

  “It’d be a matter of programming I guess. Reprogramming.”

  “Some kind of reverse transcription.”

  “Sounds good. I can’t do it. I can see what’s happening, but I can’t do anything about it.”

  “You know but can’t act.”

  “Yeah t
hat’s right.”

  “But you did this. So I’ll see what I can do, sure. There must be an activation code tucked in the normal voting technology. There’s any number of ways to do that. So . . . maybe it could be tweaked, to disable it. I do have a friend at NSF who does encryption, now that I think of it, and he worked at DARPA. He’s a mathematician, he might be able to help. Does your futures market list him? Edgardo Alfonso?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll look.”

  “What about anyone else at NSF?”

  “Yeah sure. Lots of NSF people. Diane Chang’s stock is pretty high right now, for that matter.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes.” She watched him think it over.

  Finally he shrugged. “Maybe saving the world is profitable.”

  “Or maybe it’s unprofitable.”

  “Hmmmmm. Listen, if you could get me a list of everyone listed in my market, that would be great. If Edgardo isn’t on the list, all the better.”

  “I’ll check. He would be discreet?”

  “Yes. He’s a friend, I trust him. And to tell the truth, he would greatly enjoy hearing about this.”

  She laughed, surprised. “He likes bad news?”

  “Very much.”

  “He must be a happy guy these days.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. But don’t tell too many people about this. Please.”

  “No. And the ones I tell won’t need to know how I’ve gotten this, either.”

  “Good.”

  “But they may need to be able to get back in to this program.”

  “Sure, I know. I’ve been thinking about that. It’ll be hard to do without anyone knowing it’s been done.” She scowled. “In fact I can’t think of a good way. I might have to do it. You know. At home.”

  “Listen, Caroline,” he said, spooked by the look on her face. “I hope you aren’t taking any chances here!”

  She frowned. “What do you think this is? I told you. He’s strange.”

  “Shit.” He hugged her hard.

  After a while she shrugged in his grasp. “Let’s just do this and see what we see. I’m as clean as I can be. I don’t think he has any idea what I’ve been up to. I’ve made it look like I’m chipped twenty-four seven and that I’m not doing anything. I can only really get offline at night, when he expects me to be sleeping. I leave the whole kit in the bed and then I can do what I need to. Otherwise if I dropped the kit it would show something was wrong. So, you know. So far so good.”

  “No one suspects you of anything?”

  “Not of anything more than marital alienation. There are some friends who know about that, sure. But that’s been going on for years. No. People have no idea.”

  “Even if they’re in the business of having that kind of idea?”

  “No. They think they know it all. They think I’m just . . . But it’s gone so far past what they can know. Don’t you understand—the technical capacity has expanded so fast, no one’s really grasped the full potential of it yet.”

  “Maybe they have. You seem to have.”

  “But no one’s listening to me.”

  “But there could be others like you.”

  “True. That may be happening too. There are superblacks now that are essentially flying free. But hopefully we won’t run into anyone like that trying to stop us on this. Hopefully they think they’re completely superblack still.”

  “Hmmm.” Counterintelligence, wasn’t that what it was called? Surely that would be standard. Unless you thought you were an innermost sanctum, the smallest and newest box in the nesting boxes, with no one aware even of your existence. If her husband was in something like that, and thought his secrets were entirely safe from an estranged wife who did nothing more than sullenly perform her midlevel tech job. . . .

  They sat side by side in an uneasy silence. Around them the city pulsed and whirred in its dreams. Such a diurnal species; here they were, surrounded by three million people, but all of them conked like zombies, leaving them in the night alone.

  She nudged into his shoulder. “I should go.”

  “Okay.”

  They kissed briefly. Frank felt a wave of desire, then fear. “You’ll call?”

  “I’ll call. I’ll call your Khembali embassy.”

  “Okay good. Don’t be too long.”

  “I won’t. I never have.”

  “That’s true.” Although not quite.

  They got up and hugged. He watched her walk off. When he couldn’t see her anymore he walked back up the levee path. A runner passed going the other way, wearing orange reflective gloves. After that Frank was alone in the vast riverine landscape. The view up the Mall toward the Capitol was as of some stupendous temple’s formal garden. The smell of Caroline’s hair was still in his nostrils, preternaturally clear and distinct. He was afraid for her.

  Frank drove back to NSF and slept in his van, or tried to. Upstairs early the next morning, feeling stunned and unhappy, he looked at the disk Caroline had given him. Clearly he had to do something with it. He was afraid to put it in his computers. Who knew what it would trigger, or wreak, or report to.

  He could put them in a public computer. He could turn off his laptop’s airport transmitter permanently. He could buy a cheap laptop and never airport it at all. He could . . .

  He went for a run with Edgardo and Kenzo and Bob. When they got to the narrow path that ran alongside Route 66, he tailed behind with Edgardo, and then slowed a little, and then saw that Kenzo and Bob were talking about some matter of their own, in the usual way of this stretch.

  He said, “Edgardo, do you think the election matters?”

  “What, the presidential election?”

  “Yes.”

  Edgardo laughed, prancing for a few strides to express his joy fully. “Frank, you amaze me! What a good question.”

  “But you know what I mean.”

  “No, not at all. Do you mean, will it make a difference which of these candidates takes office? Or do you mean are elections in general a farce?”

  “Both.”

  “Oh, well. I think Chase would do better than the president on climate.”

  “Yes.”

  “But elections in general? Maybe they don’t matter. But let’s say they are good, sure. Good soap opera, but also they are symbols, and symbolic action is still action. We need the illusion they give us, that we understand things and have some control. I mean, in Argentina, when elections went away, you really noticed how different things felt. As if the law had gone. Which it had. No, elections are good. It’s voters who are bad.”

  Frank said, “That’s interesting. I mean—if you think they matter, then I find that reassuring.”

  “You must be very easily reassured.”

  “Maybe I am. I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  “You’re lucky if you are. But—why do you need reassurance?”

  “I’ve got a disk back in my office that I’d kind of like to show you. But I’m afraid it might be dangerous.”

  “Dangerous to the election?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Oh ho.” Edgardo ran on a few strides. “May I ask who gave it to you?”

  “I can’t tell you that. A friend in another agency.”

  “Ah ha! Frank, I am surprised at you. But this town is so full of spooks, I guess you can’t avoid them. The first rule when you meet one is to run away, however.” Edgardo considered it. “Well, I could put it in a laptop I have.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “That’s what it’s for.”

  “Do you still have contacts with people at DARPA?”

  “Sort of.” He shook his head. “My cohort there has scattered by now. That might not be where I would go to get help anyway. You could never be sure if they weren’t the source of your problem in the first place. Do you know what the disk has on it?”

  Frank told him what Caroline had said about the plan to fix the election. As he spoke he felt the oddity
of the information coming out of his mouth, and Edgardo glanced at him from time to time, but mostly he ran on nodding as if to confirm what Frank was saying.

  “Does this sound familiar?” Frank asked. “You’re not looking too shocked.”

  “No. It’s been a real possibility for some time now. Assuming that it hasn’t already happened a time or two.”

  “Aren’t there any safeguards? Ways of checking for accuracy, or making a proper recount if they need to?”

  “There are. But neither are foolproof, of course.”

  “How can that be?”

  “That’s just the way the technology works. That’s the system Congress has chosen to use. Convenient, eh?”

  “So you think there could be interventions?”

  “Sure. I’ve heard of programs that identify close races as they’re being tallied, close ones but just outside the margin of error, so there aren’t any automatic recounts to gum up the works. . . . Embed a tweak that reverses a certain percentage of votes, you know, just enough to change the result.”

  “Might you be able to counter one of these, if you saw it in advance? Some kind of reverse transcription that would neutralize the tweak without tipping off the people deploying it?”

  “Me?”

  “Or people you know.”

  “Let me look at what you have. If it looks like it might be what you think, then I’ll pass it along to some friends of mine.”

  “Thanks, Edgardo.”

  “But here we come to the bike path, let’s change the subject. Give me what you’ve got, and I’ll see what I can do. But give it to me at Food Factory, at three, and let’s not talk about this in the building.”

  “No,” Frank said, interested to see how Edgardo appeared to assume that the building might be compromised. So the surveillance was real after all. Of course he had known that; Caroline had told him. But it was interesting to get data from a different source.

  Back at work, showered and in his office, checking the clock frequently and then setting his alarm for three so he didn’t forget, Frank saw in an e-mail from Diane that Yann Pierzinski was on the first list for the expanded Grants for Exploratory Research program. He smiled, but then frowned. The new climate studies institute in San Diego had been approved, and the old Torrey Pines Generique facility rented to house it; and Leo Mulhouse had even been hired to run a genetic engineering lab. It all added up to good news, which of course he ought to call and share with Marta.