Realms Unreel (2011)

by Audrey Auden

  “Whoa,” said Emmie, “So … what does that have to do with your dad?”

  Zeke’s gaze turned inward as he said,

  “My father is a high-ranking member of the church. A Steward of the True Cross. He heads up a church ministry called Youth for Truth, to keep young people away from all the corrupting influences of mainstream society. Including the alternet.”

  Emmie gave a humorless laugh.

  “How did you end up being a hot-shot domain designer with a father like that?”

  “I never wanted anything to do with him,” Zeke said bitterly, “I left as soon as I figured out how to support myself.

  “But my dad kept tabs on me. I guess I didn’t make it that hard. I didn’t change my name or anything. My mom did. She disappeared a long time ago.”

  Zeke heaved a sigh.

  “I should have tried harder to stay away from him. A little over a year ago, he just showed up. He was starting a new church in Oakland, and he came to see me.

  “I … I was lonely. I started talking to him about my life, about how things at work were going. I was really unhappy. And jealous. My dad saw that. He started trying to convince me that God was giving me a sign, showing me that Augur was evil. He said God wanted me to bring about his plan by taking down Temenos.

  “I didn’t believe him any more than I had when I was a kid, but he gave me the code anyway. He said I would realize soon enough that he was telling the truth. He said he knew that I would do the right thing.

  “And when Ty didn’t pick my backup concept — I just didn’t think. I was so angry …”

  He looked away, and Emmie pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling dizzy as she said,

  “But you didn’t tell this to anyone? Your lawyer? The judge?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Zeke, unfocused eyes staring off into space, “I planted the code. I’m responsible for what happened.”

  “But you weren’t working alone,” Emmie insisted, unable to understand his detachment, “Why did you just plead guilty?”

  Zeke shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic seat attached at a fixed angle to the table.

  “I’m safer in here.”

  The way Zeke said that made Emmie feel sick.

  “Safer from what?” she whispered.

  After a long silence, Emmie reached slowly across the table and touched his hand. It was ice cold.

  “Zeke,” she said, her voice low, “What the hell is going on?”

  At last his eyes turned to meet hers. He swallowed and said,

  “Emmie. I never meant to hurt you or Owen. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I did, and I … I remember telling my father a lot of things. About how close you and Tomo were. And I remember something he said. That you and Tomo were two of the biggest threats to the church, and that it was the will of God that you be stopped.”

  Emmie pulled back her hand, and a red haze crept in around the edges of her vision.

  “Are you saying your father had something to do with Tomo’s death?”

  “I — I don’t know. But my father knew what would happen when I planted that code in the spliner. Owen’s death was no accident. Maybe Tomo’s wasn’t, either.”

  ∞

  Emmie couldn’t remember how she returned to her car, but now she was throwing it into reverse, peeling out of the parking lot, narrowly missing a barrier fence on her way back to the freeway.

  “Careful,” Dom said softly, his projection materializing beside her. Emmie jumped, then switched the car into autopilot with a shaking hand. She focused on the horizon as the dusty expanse of the Central Valley rushed by, forcing the swirl of confusion in her mind to resolve into a single desperate thought.

  “This can’t be true,” she muttered, launching her anonymous proxy internet browser. A moment later, she was grappling with the Oakland PD’s website, an archaic internet interface typical of government services. She read through a poorly-organized web page explaining the process for requesting public records. She drafted a request for the accident report of Tomo’s death using a template produced by a quick alternet search. After she submitted it, a message explained that an automated review process was checking confidentiality restrictions on the information she had requested. A moment later, the report popped up.

  She examined the document. Name of deceased: Tomo Yoshimoto. Location of incident: Webster and 8th Street, Oakland, CA. She skimmed past the name of the ambulance company and other extraneous details. A note referenced two attached witness statements.

  The first was from a man named William Chen, a short statement that explained he had been walking by when another man at the scene asked him to call 911. Chen stated that Tomo had appeared unconscious from the time he had called until the time the ambulance had arrived.

  The second statement, which closely matched the first, belonged to a man named Amos Eckerd. She ran an alternet search, turning up several photos of a tall, handsome man preaching, standing in prayer circles, building houses in Third World countries. The resemblance to Zeke was unmistakable.

  “Damn,” she said, “That’s him.”

  She massaged her eyes for a minute, then flipped on a visual overlay. A few alternet searches on “Stewards” and “Stewards of the True Cross” turned up surprisingly little: mostly references to legends about the physical remnants of the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified, and some internet websites and alternet domains that made incidental references containing similar phrases.

  Emmie closed the useless search results and closed her eyes.

  “I need help,” she whispered.

  Her eyes flickered open.

  “Yeah. I need help.”

  ∞

  Emmie logged on to Temenos and teleported directly to the lobby of the Founders Club. The uniformed receptionist behind the desk smiled politely.

  “How may I help you today, Anonymous Member?”

  “I’d like to check out a secure meeting room,” said Emmie.

  “Certainly. Just a moment.”

  After her identity verification was complete, a message popped up on Emmie’s overlay containing a link to an encrypted subdomain. She followed the link and found herself in an elegant gazebo surrounded by a vast English garden. A warm summer breeze carried a carefully engineered scent of flowers across the neatly trimmed lawn. Emmie inhaled appreciatively. The extravagant quality of even the most prosaic services was one of the perks of Club membership.

  She realized after a moment that Dom was standing behind her, and she turned around to face him, shaking her head as she said,

  “How do you do that? It’s impossible to hack your way into an encrypted subdomain on Temenos.”

  Dom’s face was unreadable as he sank into the cushioned seat of the white wicker chair across from her.

  “What are you planning to do?” he asked. Emmie leaned against a column of the gazebo and dictated,

  “Member offers temens, reputation, or favor in exchange for information on religious organization called Church of the True Cross. Mutual identity verification required.”

  With a few keystrokes, she broadcast the request to all Club members, then trotted down the steps of the gazebo to contemplate the calming scenery.

  A few minutes later, several responses appeared on her visual overlay. She sent polite, if perfunctory, rejections to all but the top three responses as ranked by her personal trust algorithm. After skimming the recommendations for each candidate, she finally settled on the one unnamed identity whose long list of trust network recommendations included those of several prominent Club members, including Tomo.

  She initiated an automated negotiation to establish the minimum profile information required by this identity as a prerequisite to meeting in the secure transaction space. When the negotiation concluded, Emmie quickly scanned the proposed exchange and approved it with a wave of her hand. A moment later, the profile of the other party appeared on her screen.

  Identity: Falsens.

&
nbsp; Reputation in your professional network:

  High: Private alternet security

  High: Corporate alternet security

  High: Electronic surveillance

  High: Electronic counter-surveillance

  High: Cyberterrorism

  High: Counter-cyberterrorism.

  The reputation listing went on and on, and Emmie stopped reading long before she reached the end to punch the “Enter meeting” prompt hovering below the profile.

  A moment later, a squat avatar of indeterminate gender, race, and age appeared at the foot of the gazebo. Emmie raised an eyebrow.

  “I guess your profile’s not kidding about the security bit.”

  Falsens responded in an electronically modulated voice that morphed smoothly from male to female, adult to child, and back again over the course of a few sentences.

  “Avatars give away a lot. Yours puts you at ninety percent probability female, eighty-four percent probability technology industry, seventy-eight percent probability American, etcetera. Most people don’t think about it until it’s too late.”

  Emmie sucked her teeth. Falsens might have her pegged for a techie American female, but she could already tell that she was dealing with a condescending, subtly misogynistic geek of the male persuasion. She pushed on through her irritation.

  “So you know something about the Church of the True Cross?”

  “That is why I responded.”

  “What would you like in exchange for the information?”

  “Two thousand temens. Subsequent consultations will be twelve hundred.”

  Emmie laughed in surprise at his presumption.

  “You’re expecting repeat business?”

  “Based on my knowledge of the Church of the True Cross, I imagine you have a specific security concern in mind. Whatever those concerns may be, I am sure you will find my other services useful. Is the price acceptable?”

  A payment authorization prompt appeared on her visual overlay, and Emmie let out a low whistle. She had never been very thrifty, but this was a pretty big sum to drop just for some information.

  “Fabulous,” she said dryly, deciding this was her best option. She tapped her authorization for the charge. “So what can you tell me?”

  “The Church of the True Cross is a regional branch of a larger organization funded by a number of religious fundamentalist denominations around the world. The umbrella organization goes by many names, but members of the central leadership are usually referred to as Stewards. The congregations directed by the Stewards have been implicated over the past several decades in a number of sophisticated cyberterrorism attacks against key communication infrastructure hubs. A number of private corporations affected by the attacks have taken legal action against different denominations related to the Stewards, but all such suits have settled out of court.”

  Emmie chewed her lip as she processed this information, then asked,

  “Were the server farm wipe-outs that Augur experienced last year caused by the Stewards?”

  “Multiple attacks on alternet domains last year, including the attack you’re referencing, were attributed to the Stewards by private security analysts.”

  “What about killings? Assassinations? Have they been implicated in anything like that?”

  “Not according to any information I have seen. Although the organization’s motives for cyberterrorism are unclear, the effects of these attacks have tended toward destruction of hardware, software, and data, not human life. Why do you ask?”

  Emmie took a deep breath.

  “There was a hardware malfunction in the main spliner belonging to my employer, Augur, this past December. I was injured in the accident, and my — my colleague, Owen Cyrus, was killed. Another colleague of mine, Zeke Eckerd, was convicted of planting the trojan that caused the accident. I just visited Zeke in prison, and he told me that his father, a man named Amos Eckerd, provided the software that caused the malfunction. He said his father works for The Church of the True Cross. He also said his title, or something, is Steward.”

  “Do you believe this man, Amos Eckerd, was attempting to assassinate you? Or Owen Cyrus?”

  “I don’t know. But this man may have been involved in another death. My former boss, Tomo Yoshimoto.”

  “Do you have any evidence implicating Amos Eckerd?”

  “Only circumstantial. He gave a witness statement to the police who showed up when Tomo collapsed on the street.”

  “And are you concerned for your own safety?”

  The question caught her off guard. She had been so absorbed with what had happened to Owen and Tomo that she had not fully considered what this might mean for her.

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly, “Maybe. Should I be?”

  “I don’t have enough information to advise you at this point. However, I would be more than happy to investigate the matter further for you, as well as advise you on safety precautions. Would you like to see a proposal for these services?”

  Curious, but unsure what she might be getting herself into, Emmie said,

  “I guess so.”

  “Please hold.”

  A moment later, an interactive presentation appeared before Emmie and responded to her touch as she navigated through a proposed list of services interspersed with a collection of well-produced short videos describing different case studies and highlighting various anonymous and signed testimonials.

  “And pricing?” asked Emmie.

  “Five hundred temens per day for my 24-hour personal security concierge. Ten percent discount for subscriptions lasting more than three months. Twelve hundred temens per consultation, investigation travel and meal expenses extra, as required. All charges subject to client approval at the time of request.”

  Emmie flipped through the proposal presentation a second time.

  “Well,” she said, taking a leap of faith in her trust algorithm, “My network says you’re good.”

  “The best,” said Falsens.

  “All right. Let’s do it.”

  ∞

  Having approved Falsens’ proposal and installed the personal security concierge client on her smartcom, Emmie logged out of Temenos. Her car was still speeding north on I-80, and the late afternoon sun streamed in through the driver’s side window. She turned up the tint on the car windows and turned down the temperature of her immerger clothing to help cool herself off. Her heart was beating unusually fast.

  “Security alert,” a calming simulation of a female voice spoke into her earbuds. A flashing indicator on her visual overlay indicated that this message came from her personal security concierge.

  “What’s wrong?” said Emmie, frowning.

  “Preliminary security screening of your current location indicates a high probability that the Tesla Courant, license plate 5-SOS-101, currently two tenths of a mile behind you, has been following you since the Los Banos onramp.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “This is what your preliminary environment security screening indicates.”

  Emmie massaged her temples, exasperated.

  “Well, do you know who’s in the car?”

  “No. Tinted glass prevents facial recognition by our roadside security monitors.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Please request a consultation for additional recommendations.”

  Emmie craned her neck to look out her back window, squinting at the cars in the distance until she realized she would not recognize a Tesla Courant even if it pulled up beside her. After a pause, the concierge prompted helpfully,

  “Would you like to initiate a consultation?”

  “Uh,” Emmie turned around to face the front again, “Sure. Yes.”

  A moment later, Falsens’ avatar appeared in a projection.

  “Hello, Miss Bridges. How may I help you?”

  “Your concierge says someone is following me. What should I do about that?”

  “I would suggest maintaining your present cour
se until I can send a counter-surveillance operative to guide you through evasive maneuvers.”

  Emmie gaped at Falsens.

  “You can do that?”

  “Yes. Perhaps you did not have a chance to review my complete list of available services.” Falsens’ interactive proposal appeared before Emmie again. “If you navigate to section —”

  “No, no. That’s okay. I want to go ahead with it.”

  “Certainly. All I need is your authorization.”

  An interface popped up on Emmie’s visual overlay displaying a detailed tally of the charges incurred so far, as well as the additional charges for the latest consult and proposed counter-surveillance operation. Emmie inhaled sharply, then tapped the approval button.

  “Thank you,” Falsens said promptly, disappearing from view.

  Emmie’s stomach twisted as she imagined the cold blue eyes she had glimpsed in the alternet search results, watching her through the dark glass of one of the cars behind her. She pulled her feet up onto the car seat, hugging her knees to her chest, watching the status indicator on her visual overlay count down the seconds to the estimated rendezvous time with the counter-surveillance operative.

  ∞

  The freeway traffic had slowed to a dead stop somewhere outside Livermore, still miles from Oakland, when the crisp voice of the security concierge said,

  “Please prepare for rendezvous.”

  Emmie looked out at the sea of cars surrounding her, then flipped open a map on her visual overlay to check her current location and the cause of the standstill: a rare vehicle accident that had closed all four lanes of traffic.

  “Where?” she said anxiously, “We’re miles from the next exit.”

  A sudden clamor of car horns caused Emmie to flick off her visual overlay. In the rearview monitor on her dashboard, she saw a small dust cloud approaching. She turned quickly in her seat to watch through the window as a small grey sedan with opaque black windows raced up the shoulder, coming to a stop just across from her.