Being Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  “Excellent. Once again, your logic is impeccable.”

  “Intriguing. And in this analogy Moira is the supercomputer?”

  “That may be exaggerating slightly.” Magnus takes two bottles of water from a recess in the car door and passes her one. “Though Moira has certainly demonstrated great capacity to predict and to plan. So the choice is whether to play her game or try to beat her at it. But beating her requires her to predict that you will not attempt to do so.”

  “I don’t know, Magnus. Playing by her rules and getting a million pounds—or a million puppies—doesn’t seem so bad. Is it worth risking all that for an extra thousand quid?”

  “I accept that the analogy is not complete. But there are also principles at stake. Moira is operating completely outside the bounds of acceptability.”

  She stares at her brother for a moment. “You were never a great one for principles,” she muses. Looking out the window, she sees the driver has missed the exit to the Priory School and is heading instead onto the M4. “Where are we going, Magnus?”

  “Oh I just wanted to pop by a museum for a visit,” her brother replies, a little too innocently. “I’ll get you on a train back to school soon enough.”

  His sincerity will not fool her. Magnus’s delay in coming to see her is suddenly cast in a new light. “I fear we might be a little late—doesn’t that museum close at 4:30pm in winter?”

  He simply chuckles.

  “I must say,” she observes, “that it was awfully lucky that the fake jewel was made of Lucite. It’s a fairly antiquated form of costume jewellery. These days they tend to be made of glass or cubic zirconia. But if you poured a bottle of acetone over one of those, of course, the worst you would do is give it a good clean.”

  Magnus says nothing, but he is evidently pleased with himself. From a refrigerated compartment between the seats, he takes out a small cylinder of chocolates. “Salted caramel?” he offers, popping one into his own mouth at the same time.

  “No thanks,” she demurs. “But may I see it?”

  Butter would not melt in her brother’s mouth, but the salted caramel clearly does. “See what, Arcadia?” he asks around the liquid chocolate.

  “The gem, St. Edward’s Sapphire—the one you stole just now from a police station, switching it with a plastic copy that you then destroyed.”

  “Oh very well.” He puts the chocolates back in their chiller and wipes his fingers clean on a wet cloth. Then from an inside pocket of his jacket, he retrieves the stone, wrapped in the silk handkerchief, and passes it to her.

  “Impressive,” she says, holding it up to the light. She leaves it to him to decide whether she is complimenting the stone or his exploits. “You delayed coming to see me so that you could have the copy made—or you acquired it from someone. Then procured the acetone—concentrated, I assume, to ensure a speedy disintegration of the Lucite. The switch was simplicity itself as you could turn your back on the marks as you put the fake jewel in the saucer. No offence, but I doubt you could have pulled it off relying only on sleight of hand.”

  “None taken,” Magnus purrs. “Prestidigitation was never my cup of tea. Misdirection, on the other hand—misdirection I can work with.”

  They have entered London proper now. Ahead of them looms the iconic Tower Bridge, but the car takes a sharp left onto a siding that drops down below the elevated road. The Bentley slows at an arched gate that swings open as they approach. Headlights come on automatically as they drive into the tunnel, briefly illuminating the blackness that swallows the car and its occupants.

  5

  RAVEN

  Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London was a residence before it was a prison. The White Tower still dominates the complex. Designed in the eleventh century primarily to keep Londoners hostile to their Norman rulers out, the rag-stone building’s ability to keep prisoners in was called into question by its first detainee, who was also the first to escape. The flaw was more human than architectural, however. After he was locked up in 1100 AD for embezzlement, friends of Bishop Ranulf Flambard concealed a rope within a flagon of wine and sent it to him. The benevolent bishop threw a party, ensured that his captors drank copiously, and then used the rope to climb out a window when they had lapsed into a stupor.

  The Tower fared better as a stronghold for the Crown Jewels, which—prior to Moira—had never been stolen. Colonel Thomas Blood came close in 1671, foiled when the Master of the Jewel House’s son raised the alarm upon finding his father bound and gagged. As a result of Magnus’s intervention, it seems that Moira’s historic feat will be unrecorded.

  The Bentley continues along the tunnel and through a second gate, taking them under the Tower grounds to pull up at a small underground carpark. Magnus alights, indicating for her to stay within the vehicle.

  She watches her brother approach a solid metal door with multiple locks. As he nears, it opens and a stout Yeoman of the Guard steps out. Dressed in a uniform that has barely changed in five centuries, the beefeater’s scarlet doublet has a white ruff and gold trim, scarlet tights covering his legs down to patent-leather shoes. The garish clothing somehow fits the sombre moment—a priceless jewel and symbol being returned to its rightful home.

  As Magnus produces the pouch, the flat-brimmed black velvet hat bows in acknowledgement, also serving to shield the face of the guard from view. Two patient hands are extended to receive the jewel, but Magnus pauses.

  The beefeater is short, no taller than herself, though it is decades since height restrictions were in place for British forces. The padded doublet conceals much of his body shape—if it is a “he” at all. Magnus turns to look over his shoulder at his sister: he suspects also. Not normally given to theatrics, her brother appears ready to make an exception in this instance. Moira has fooled him once too often and he is going to enjoy his revenge, a vindication of his superior powers of observation and proof that he is impervious to Moira’s dissimulation. With a flourish, Magnus raises his hand—and knocks the beefeater’s hat clear from her head.

  No, on reflection, definitely his head.

  She estimates the balding pate to be that of a fifty-year-old man. From Cornwall, if she were pressed for a county. Had he not been bald, of course, the shock of being attacked by Magnus might have caused alopecia to reveal his shiny scalp anyway. Instead, he simply gasps and staggers back, fear and confusion in his eyes.

  Magnus is profuse in his apologies—misunderstanding, been under a lot of stress, no harm done. She is too far away to hear the words, but the meaning is clear in her brother’s posture. After a minute of this, the hat gently dusted down and restored to its rightful place, the beefeater is mollified and bows once more. With less grandiosity, Magnus hands over the velvet pouch with the jewel and returns to the car.

  “Not a word,” he says tersely.

  But she cannot resist. “Perhaps you would like to sign his arm also?” she inquires innocently.

  “Oh do shut up, Arcadia.” He leans forward to tap on the partition and their unseen driver takes them further into the darkness.

  The Bentley emerges on the other side of the Tower complex, winding a path through London’s labyrinthine streets. She does not bother to ask the destination; it will become clear soon enough.

  Taxi drivers who ply these roads on a daily basis must famously acquire “The Knowledge”, memorising some 25,000 streets and countless possible routes. Studying can take two to four years, during which the hippocampus—the seahorse-shaped part of the brain used in spatial memory—grows measurably. Storing so much information comes at a cost, however, and some cabbies have diminished short-term memory as a result.

  Magnus’s driver is following a well-travelled route, changing lanes in advance of turns and without hesitation. Or perhaps he is using a satellite navigation system.

  The car follows the Thames for a while and approaches Canary Wharf, stopping outside a nondescript glass and steel office building. Magnus alights, this time
holding the door open for her. They enter the building, where a security guard sits behind a desk below the minimalist logo of Universal Exports Ltd. He nods at Magnus as they walk towards a bank of elevators. There are no buttons, though a door opens as they approach.

  “‘Universal Exports’?” she says as the lift doors close.

  “Lighten up, Arcadia,” Magnus replies stiffly. “If it was good enough for Mr. Bond I’m sure it will be fine for our purposes. Besides, there really is an import-export company in this building, with a thriving business in casual sportswear. Above ground, that is all that any observer would see.”

  There are no buttons in the cabin either, but it starts to descend.

  “Below ground,” he continues, looking pleased, “is a different story.”

  Universal Exports Ltd. is the cover used by Britain’s most famous fictional spy, James Bond. The existence of the agency for which he works—MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service—was officially denied by the British government until 1992, well after the release of the sixteenth film popularising his exploits. Was the choice of cover here some inside joke among the spies? Or an elaborate ruse to give the appearance that it was an MI6 facility when in fact it hosts some other organisation?

  After a descent of fifty feet or so, the doors open. Another guard at another desk nods at them, a curiously familiar form of security. Unless there are unseen scanners, the number of people entering the facility must be reasonably small. Or it might be that Magnus’s distinctive figure makes a formal identity check redundant.

  The second guard’s desk lacks a corporate logo, nor are there signs indicating what lies down the corridors that lead off from the anteroom. Magnus goes to the left and she follows, entering a conference room with dozens of screens displaying security camera footage from around London. On another wall a stream of social media posts float up like bubbles in a soda. Each apparently chosen according to some algorithm, it is like hearing snippets of conversation at a café—a café in which all the talk is of bringing down the government or rising up in violent revolution.

  She is reminded of her former Headmaster’s secret chamber with its video feeds from around the school. Magnus passes through the conference room and into another hallway. Analysts at desks with laptop computers pore over data ranging from bank transfers to browser histories, the electronic footprints of modern life. At the end of the corridor is a large office with glass walls, an ornately carved desk and overstuffed leather chair incongruous in the high-tech environs. On the desk—oak, it appears—an antique globe sits next to a fountain pen and blotter.

  Magnus approaches the office—and then sits down at a small cubicle just outside it. A raised eyebrow dares her to say something. She declines to do so.

  She borrows a chair from the adjacent cubicle, noting the takeaway pizza box poking out of its dustbin. “So,” she says at last. “I assume you didn’t bring me here to impress me. Have you decided that you do in fact need my help, not merely to serve as bait? Am I getting warm?”

  Magnus is looking down, busy with something in his desk drawer, but a grunt indicates she should continue.

  “The files Moira accessed in your system,” she says. “You can’t work out what she was looking for, or why she stole what she stole. You think I can help.”

  When her brother lifts his head he is holding a muffin. “Not quite. You see, she didn’t steal anything. Nor did she access the most sensitive files.” He takes a bite from the muffin—banana by the smell. “Based on what we have been able to reconstruct, she was particularly interested in the suppliers for the project. I was rather hoping you might assist us in working out why.”

  Putting the muffin down, Magnus taps on a keyboard and a list of names and organisations appears on the screen set into his cubicle. Some are large technology companies like Apple and IBM, but there are also a dozen or so individuals; on a line by itself, one is identified simply as “X”. She recognises two of the names, one of them belonging to a dead man. Lysander Starr is listed as a consultant at Reading University; a column indicates his status as “inactive”. Something of an understatement. Directly above him in alphabetical order is Lucian Smythe, the fellow at Magdalen College who interviewed her only yesterday. He, by contrast, is “active”.

  Starr was a biological anthropologist. Smythe is a mathematician working on artificial intelligence. What kind of research project would bring them together?

  Not enough data. “I would love to help you, brother dear,” she says. “But it would help to know a little more about your pet project here. Something involving the interface between artificial intelligence and the human brain. Please don’t tell me that you’ve been trying to build a friend to play chess with.”

  Magnus yawns. “You know perfectly well that there are more than adequate chess programmes on the open market. In any case, I’m much more interested in wetware than software.”

  One of the other companies on the list is GE Healthcare, indicated as a provider of fMRI. Functional magnetic resonance imaging is used to map brain activity and diagnose neurological problems. Gather enough information about the brain’s workings, upload it into a sufficiently powerful computer, and—“You’re modelling artificial intelligence on an actual brain? Making a copy of someone’s neural activity and running it on a computer? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “It is not. Yet,” Magnus concedes. “And though you have essentially guessed the outlines of Project Raven—albeit after more than enough time and clues—I must warn you that you are still bound by the Official Secrets Act not to speak of this with anyone else.”

  “‘Project Raven’?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Magnus takes another bite of the muffin. “After the poem by Edgar Allen Poe.”

  “‘Once upon a midnight dreary’,” she quotes. “I know the poem. But what is the connection with brain scans?”

  Magnus sniffs, feigning disappointment even as he revels in the opportunity to explain the allusion. “The poem, as you recall, is about a young man struggling to forget his dead lover, Lenore. Wallowing in self-pity, his reverie is disturbed by a ‘stately raven’, which shows that he will never forget Lenore.”

  “I thought the raven was a metaphor for his descent into madness?”

  “Well, that’s another interpretation.” The remainder of the muffin disappears into her brother’s mouth. “In any event, the project aims to capture memories by taking a snapshot of the brain. It’s true that computers cannot yet match the brain in terms of raw power. Machines may outperform humans in most tasks, but that’s because people—most people, at least—use their brains so inefficiently. A supercomputer might have billions of transistors, each with three connections to other transistors. The human brain has a hundred billion neurons, each connected to up to ten thousand other neurons.

  “Give a machine a clear task and the machine wins. Calculators surpassed mental arithmetic in the 1960s; chess was more complicated and so humans held out until the 1990s. The Chinese game go is even trickier, though computers now win at that also. But give a computer something really hard—like recognising faces or processing natural language—and a child will still outperform it. Maybe in another decade or so our silicon friends will catch up with us. In the meantime, the Raven mapping process lets us capture and analyse the state of the brain—reconstructing, for example, the last moments of a dying soldier’s life.”

  “Or interrogating a prisoner,” she adds. “You wouldn’t even need to ask him a question.”

  “Such intelligence-gathering possibilities have not escaped our attention.” Once again, Magnus busies himself at the desk drawer. This time he emerges holding a muesli bar between his forefinger and thumb, as if it were toxic. “My secretary occasionally slips these in, telling me that they are ‘healthy’. I think she means ‘healthful’, but such seed-based confections are clearly intended for birds and not humans.” He drops the offending object in the dustbin next to
the empty pizza box.

  “And why do you think Moira is interested in your little project here?”

  “I believe, sister dear, that you previously deduced that this is what I wanted to ask you.”

  Very well. “Starr’s name cannot be a coincidence,” she begins. “Perhaps Moira is trying to work out who else is connected to him, either to punish them for what they did to her or to find out the truth about her upbringing. Or maybe she wants to continue the experiment, to realise her full potential.” She pauses. “Is there any way that your Project Raven could be directed to that end?”

  A crease works its way across Magnus’s brow. “I doubt it. The focus is on mapping and recording brain activity, not enhancing it.” The crease deepens and his jaw sets a little more firmly. “I did explore, for example, whether the technology could be used to help coma patients recover from brain trauma. Unfortunately all it offers is a more rigorous diagnosis—not a cure.”

  The image of Mother in her hospital bed comes unbidden. Mens sana in corpore sano. Focus on the matter at hand: if Moira could unravel who was involved in imprisoning her, it might also reveal the identity of the professor behind the attack on her parents.

  “Who or what is ‘X’?” She points to the single character at the bottom of the list. Instead of “active” or “inactive”, the status is listed as “classified”.

  “Alas, there are secrets in this world to which not even I am privy,” her brother replies. “‘X’ is one of the founders of the project. I have not met him or her—statistically it is more likely to be a ‘him’, though I have learned not to prejudge such matters. But I have been assured by the highest authority that he or she can be trusted completely.”

  “I didn’t think you trusted anyone completely,” she retorts. “What about Lucian Smythe. He’s a fellow at Magdalen College and interviewed me only yesterday. I first met him a year ago and he outlined his theory of artificial intelligence—a kind of inverse Turing Test in which a computer doesn’t try to fool a human into thinking it is conscious, instead the machine must fool itself.”