The Gomorrah Gambit

by Tom Chatfield

Azi has the sudden feeling that he’s wandered into one of those Reddit threads where very angry people discuss books they’ve never read. “It doesn’t work like that, Ad. Pretending that you’ll get a prize long after you’re dead is just a way of saying you can do whatever you like. Your ends justify any means. It’s delusional.”

  Ad shrugs. “Anyway, the data suggests he was full of shit. He quit to invest in blockchains. But the point is, what if you do know something that nobody else does, or you can see something that almost nobody else is willing to accept? There are people at the Institute who can only see the big picture. All this everyday stuff we worry about, they’d say it’s irrelevant. That in the long run, almost everything is irrelevant.”

  “Please tell me you don’t believe that, Ad. Don’t start telling me that extreme measures are necessary, then suggest we sterilize a few million people.”

  “Mate, it freaked me out. I thought they were joking. Then I thought they were trying to shock me. Then I realized that there’s just a different way of thinking out here, and they’re at the forefront. Hacking reality, solving the world.” Ad looks thoughtful. “Take some of the stuff you’re dealing with. Europe and terrorism and Nazis and all that darknet bollocks. It sounds a bit like another scenario to me. An experiment, but for real. If someone at the Institute is involved, there’ll be an angle from which everything makes sense. Perfect logical sense.”

  Azi knows what he means. “It’s just that, if you follow any logic far enough, it takes you to a strange place.”

  “Now you’re getting it! And that place is called California.”

  For a moment, it’s as if they’re just old friends catching up—as if Azi had finally decided to take a west coast vacation and sample the San Francisco air. Then there’s the slam of a door and Odi walks in, glowing with health and enthusiasm, a small dark backpack dangling from one shoulder. With a fixed grin and only the faintest whiff of irony, he looks from Azi to Ad.

  “Gentlemen, good morning. I am so glad to find you getting on. Come with me, please. I want us all to go for a ride.”

  Their ride turns out to be a waiting Uber whose driver—Yacine, according to the app on Odi’s phone—welcomes them with a pantomime of profound enthusiasm. Odi waves knowingly to a couple of guards at the front of the building, then signals Azi and Ad towards the vehicle: a large, battered blue minivan. They bundle into the back. Still smiling, Odi joins them, tugs the sliding door shut and buckles up.

  It’s bright outside and getting brighter. Both Ad and Odi are wearing sunglasses, Azi belatedly notices, thinking of his lone pair languishing in a Croydon bedroom drawer. There is something about the heat and clarity of the Californian air that demands protection, its creeping intensity threatening headaches even through glass. Beyond the tarmac and water lies a wrinkled barrier of green hills, but these are clearly ornamental, especially designed for driving past on cruise control.

  For the first few minutes, nobody says anything. Then Yacine presses a selection of buttons on his dashboard, reaches into the footwell of the front passenger seat, and fishes out a bag identical to Odi’s backpack which he tosses into the rear of the car. Odi breaks the silence with a whisper.

  “Are we all good?”

  Yacine nods briskly. “Yes, boss.”

  “Okay,” Odi murmurs, more to himself than the others. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Before they can say anything, Odi reaches down to the new bag, opens the zip of its main compartment and pulls out a 2012 MacBook layered with an impeccably fashionable blend of logos and transfers. He inspects it with satisfaction, places it on his knees, then reaches into the bag again and draws out a dangerous-looking pocket knife. This is inspected, sheathed, then placed in an outside trouser pocket. At about this point, Ad finds his way towards speech.

  “What the actual fuck is going on?”

  Odi briskly exhales. “I mentioned having some access to resources. Well, here they are: an old friend and a large favor.” Up front, Yacine gestures self-deprecatingly—although, now that he looks, Azi can’t help noticing that their driver’s arms are the approximate size of his own legs, slab-like under a yellow polo shirt. Great, another incredibly dangerous human being in my life. Odi continues. “The Americans can’t hear us, which will bother them immensely. They know we are up to something and they will want to see what we do—especially after my display last night. That’s why they let us go in the first place. For now, they will wait.”

  The expression on Ad’s face suggests he is soberly considering hurling himself out of the vehicle onto the freeway. Now that Azi’s initial shock has died down, however, he has started to feel that this is all about par for the course—and that Odi is enjoying his show-but-don’t-tell rather too much.

  “Okay, Odi. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to do some actual explaining.”

  Odi chuckles. “Look at you, all grown up. Yes, I owe you an explanation. For now, we are just driving. I do not have a plan so much as the conviction that our window of opportunity is closing fast. Adam, I need you to take a very close look at what is on this computer. Please.”

  Ad looks at Azi, then at Odi, then out of the window at the dashing landscape. Then he takes the computer and opens it. Odi points a careful finger halfway down the screen.

  “These, my friend, are a series of IP addresses for darknet nodes. Azi compiled them from a leaked file from the Islamic Republic. You can see that they are based in California, but they are also impossible to pin down geographically. For us, at least. I have a hunch that they may be more familiar to you.”

  Ad peers into the screen, cracking the knuckles of each hand in turn. Azi had forgotten until this moment just how much he detests this habit, but he also knows that it signifies focus, so he grits his teeth and waits. It’s several minutes until Ad speaks.

  “Haven’t got a fucking clue. Sorry.”

  Odi purses his lips, resting one hand on the pocket into which he slipped the knife. “This is disappointing. Are you sure?”

  Ad nods, sulkily, but Azi is already thinking aloud. “Is that thing online, Odi? Okay. Forget the IP addresses. We need to work out what connects the Existential Institute and everything else. We know that someone targeted you, Ad, as well as other employees—and that finding a Brit with my profile was the prize. Why?” Azi pauses, but neither of the others leaps in to answer. So he keeps going.

  “What I think they needed was control. Zero margin for error: total surveillance of the employees they were targeting, plus the details of a perfect patsy in the UK. Whoever was running the operation knew exactly what they needed for it to work. Which means we’re talking about someone freakishly smart, dazzling at long-term thinking, with a sideline in psychopathic indifference to human life.”

  “You’ll need to narrow it down,” Ad mutters. “That describes half of Silicon Valley.”

  Azi isn’t amused. “Ad, please. What I’m saying is that we need a way to look into this, right now—and that means a look inside the Institute’s systems. Because I’m willing to bet anything there’s a connection. Ad, I know you. There’s something you can do, right? If you really wanted to, you could find us a way in.”

  Up front, Yacine shares a look with Odi before turning them off the freeway in the direction they came. Ad takes a deep breath.

  “You guys, you’re killing me.” He takes an even deeper breath. “There’s one thing. It’s kind of a huge, irreversible, career-ending hack that’ll get me locked up forever. But, you know, maybe that’s already happened. Maybe this is it, the fat fucking lady singing her solo.”

  Despite everything, there’s a flicker of pride building in his voice.

  “I told you they were secretive, right? It pissed me off. They had a protocol for installing a new machine—and it was perfect. They assembled a brand new terminal, fresh from the factory. They got a brand new custom USB key. They gave it to a trusted employee, who walked to a secret location. And there, behind locked doors, was their cle
an zone: totally air-gapped, no connections, no vulnerabilities. That was where the operating system lived.”

  He pauses, playing his audience.

  “Every computer in the clean zone was assembled and set up on location, every line of code scrutinized before and after compilation. Everything had a cryptographic key. And of course they installed a government-grade perimeter: metal detection, vehicle barriers, laser-based anti-intrusion. The trusted employee plugged his USB into a clean zone computer, downloaded a pristine copy of the operating system, then exited and installed it on the new computer. Perfect. Except…”

  Ad is now nakedly delighted by his own cleverness.

  “…I hacked it.”

  Safe in the knowledge that narrative convention demands nothing less, Azi offers an awed interrogative. “How?”

  “I’m so glad you asked. There was a hard bit, an easier bit, then something ridiculous. First, the hard bit. I pocketed a custom USB key and introduced a vulnerability into the controller chips driving the firmware. Then the easier bit. I worked out the route walked by the trusted employee. Then the ridiculous bit. I bumped into him and swapped his USB for mine when he dropped it. Sleight of hand. And it worked.”

  “Genius!” Azi says, for once meaning it. “Just the right amount of stupidity to fool a bunch of smart people. So, wait…This is exactly what we need. It means you own them, Ad—that you can take total control of their core operating system, everything. Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  Ad looks down. “Because it was a proof of concept. The moment I do anything—the moment I even think about activating the vulnerability—a hundred separate warnings get triggered. I get complete control of their systems. Then they find out, switch everything off, hunt me down and sue me for a billion dollars.”

  He pauses, cracking his knuckles percussively.

  “Of course, I don’t give a shit about any of that now. So let’s do it.”

  Forty-one

  I’ll give you the good news first,” Ad says, licking his lips with a nervousness that suggests he’s already preoccupied with the bad news. “I can see the routing, and there’s a high chance the IP addresses Azi plotted do originate in the Existential Institute.”

  Azi tries to take this in, alongside the fact that he now lives in a world where it’s good news that a vastly well-funded California institution is apparently operating its own atrocity-on-demand global service.

  “Here’s the bad news,” Ad continues. “I’ve only managed to compromise peripheral networks. If you want any more details, we’ll need access to their systems from the inside. Deep inside.”

  Azi tries hard not to look appalled. “Right…And how long have we got? Before they, you know, notice what you’ve just done, switch everything off and come looking.”

  Ad closes his eyes. “I’d say…between one and two hours. More like one.”

  “Right.” This time, Azi decides that he might as well look appalled—and that, with luck, one of the other members of their posse will take the hint and introduce a staggeringly smart plan. Odi and Yacine, however, are deep in whispered conversation. Much gesturing takes place, then Yacine reaches backwards and clasps Odi’s arm. Azi doesn’t like the look of this.

  “Hey, you guys! I hope this isn’t some kind of intense, let’s-go-die-in-a-blaze-of-glory thing. We’re not done yet.”

  Odi turns towards him. “Of course not, my friend. We were discussing the best place to go for breakfast.”

  Azi doesn’t have an answer to this. After a few minutes, the minivan lurches across several lanes of traffic into a huge parking lot. “Diner,” Odi murmurs by way of explanation, gesturing to Ad to zip the laptop back into the substitute rucksack.

  The word “diner” conjures a quaint image in Azi’s mind, of a dilapidated yet bustling building full of salt-of-the-earth locals. But what Odi has guided them towards is a sleekly characterless air-conditioned box in one corner of a massive car park surrounded by other box-shaped outlets.

  Yacine parks next to the front awning and indicates he’ll wait in the car. With infuriating nonchalance, Odi slings the rucksack over one shoulder and beckons them to follow him inside.

  They enter, sit as far away from the window as possible, and watch Odi order a round of bottomless coffees and pancake specials. Ad looks like he’s about to slide off the seat onto the floor. Azi is holding himself together, but has decided that Odi will require at least one slap in the face during the course of the next two minutes if he doesn’t stop being so fucking enigmatic. At last, Odi hoists his rucksack onto the table and starts to speak.

  “We have approximately one hour, Adam?”

  Ad twitches in agreement.

  “Then we must put our heads together. There is something in my bag that will continue to ensure our privacy, within this building at least. Adam, you may have the laptop again…Good. You have been to this diner before?”

  Ad twitches, this time in disagreement.

  “I didn’t think so. It is directly opposite the Institute—but I doubt any of its employees would ever step into a place like this.”

  This doesn’t need Ad’s affirmation. To paraphrase the wellbeing section of the Existential Institute’s website, its extensive on-site catering facilities offer three meals a day based upon a predominantly vegan, low glycemic index, gluten-free, paleo hybrid diet, aimed at enhancing health just short of emaciation. No employee would be seen dead dipping a rasher of crispy bacon into a tiny bowl of high-fructose corn syrup, as Azi is currently doing under Ad’s disgusted gaze.

  “Okay.” Odi has the manner of a man chairing an important but ultimately routine meeting. “I have brought us here, I have provided some equipment, I have a few more useful items in this bag. I do not yet know how we are going to get inside the Institute, let alone obtain administrative access to their systems. But I am confident we can solve this problem between us in the space of, let us say, ten minutes.”

  Azi takes a vehement bite of bacon. It may be the sugar rush, but he’s starting to feel unfamiliarly gung-ho—as if this is the kind of problem-solving he does every day. “Okay. Hell, yeah. I’ve done stranger shit in the last week. Ad, any chance of you sneaking in?”

  Looking miserably at his untouched stack of pancakes, Ad shakes his head. “Mate, there’s no way. They know me, they keep tabs on everything. I’ve got some systems access from here,” he taps the laptop affectionately, “but nothing that can make them forget me. Odi, what about you?”

  Odi shakes his head. “I have a vital part to play elsewhere. The Americans, they are watching our every move—giving us rope with which to hang ourselves. They know that something is wrong, that we should not be able to block their snooping. But they will keep on waiting, because they think they have anticipated everything. I look forward to proving them wrong.”

  “Then I guess that leaves me,” Azi continues. “But why would they let me even walk through the door? They wouldn’t, not in a million years. Although,” he swallows, “Ad, surely there must be someone the Existential Institute would welcome if they pitched up at random, asking for the personal attentions of senior management?”

  Now that Azi is the one on the spot and Ad is the one behind the keyboard, Ad seems to be enjoying things a little more. “You might be onto something there, mate. Give me a moment…here. Take a look at this.”

  Ad brings up a website that makes the Institute’s look self-effacing. Against a black background, two red words pulse like a heartbeat. Total Knowledge. Ad clicks, revealing a mission statement in the same eye-warping font: achieving total understanding of the human condition through data and applied AI.

  “These arseholes,” Ad grins knowingly, “have been the Institute’s biggest acquisition target for the last three years. They’re a British firm, valued at a few hundred million, boasting deep learning techniques they say can make sense of yottabytes of unstructured data. I reckon it’s bollocks, but Erasmus is horny as hell for them.”

  Enlightenment
dawns on Azi. “And you want me to pretend I’m one of them?”

  “Yes, mate. It’s another seriously short-term hack, but with the access I’ve got here I should be able to redirect traffic from inside the Institute to a dummy bunch of websites and search results. You can be, let’s see, the brand new Chief Technology Officer at Total Knowledge.”

  “That might just work!” Azi is starting to get the hang of this collective scheming. “We can say I’m in the area, had a meeting canceled, want to chat about mutual interests. Urgent and discreet. They’ll provide someone senior, right?”

  Ad’s typing fingers are a blur. “They’ll bend over backwards, and probably try to brainwash you at the same time. It’s like Scientology with extra shiny knobs on. They genuinely think that they know best about the ultimate questions facing humanity. Only difference is, they might be right.”

  “Okay, okay. I don’t look the part, but I’m guessing you’ve thought about that, Odi?”

  Odi smiles a diamond-edged smile. “I have had several thoughts. Appropriate clothes were one of them. But I’m afraid you won’t like the others.” He taps the pocket within which his knife lies waiting. “If you follow me, we can get the most important one out of the way.”

  While Ad continues to tap at the keyboard—readying his payload for delivery inside the Institute, he mutters—Azi follows Odi at a careful distance into a fortuitously large, lockable restroom containing disabled facilities and a baby-changing table.

  “I’m not going to lie, Azi.” Odi folds down the plastic changing table from the wall and gestures to Azi to lay his left forearm across it. “This is going to hurt a great deal. But I will be fast and, as long as you do not move, accurate. Here.”

  From the bag, Odi produces a selection of small bottles, some rolled bandages and two leather straps. It’s at this point that Azi works out what he’s going to do.

  “Holy crap! You’re going to remove the tracker. You’re going to cut open my fucking arm.” Odi nods. “Oh sweet Jesus, you’re really going to do it. I can’t believe it. There’s got to be another way, Odi, surely. Please.”