by P. W. Singer
As the line of police worked its way through the lobby, Keegan stood about 30 feet behind them and slowly panned the crowd. She frowned. The sniffer bot was advancing on the far left side, not the center where its sensors would have been most effective. The two Metro Police officers had kept their bot close to them; this sort of thing always happened when you threw together people from different agencies that didn’t play well together.
The pause gave her a moment to stretch her hip, releasing some of the tension that had built up in the firing nerve. Federal privacy regulations kept the system from identifying everyone in the crowd with facial recognition; only companies could legally do that. But the system could run automated searches to ID any person in the crowd unlucky enough to have crossed paths with a US law enforcement agency, a fairly large portion of the population that grew with every traffic stop, visit to an airport, even a police athletic league summer camp. As the sales pitch for the Chinese company that had pioneered the effort put it, “If someone exists, there will be traces, and if there are connections, there will be information.”14
A red pop-up identified Andrew Watts as the college-aged male in the yellow and green sweatshirt celebrating the Palo Alto @s World Series win, marking him with a misdemeanor conviction for public intoxication and urination. Two drug arrests for Leigh Sullivan, the girl in a peach-colored long dress beside him, both old ones for synth. And a slew of people popped up as victims in one identity theft case or another. None of it matched the SOA database, though, or even the statistically tailored profile for extremist activities.
Then lines began to appear, illustrating any relationships between those identified by facial recognition. A green line blazed between two women at opposite sides of the room; Stacy Limbago wore a purple backpack over one shoulder, while Torrance Fettison carried a maroon attaché case. They seemed to have nothing in common other than that they were both in pantsuits, but the feed marked them as persons of interest in a tax fraud investigation, each unaware that they were about to be swept up in the same case. More and more pop-ups clouded Keegan’s view, lanced by green, then blue, then red lines identifying the type of link.
“We’ve got hyperspectral from the cameras in the station,” said Noritz in her ear. “I’m piping it through.” A pop-up live feed appeared in her glasses, a moving forest of rainbow limbs, a carnivalesque rendering of each person, their clothing, body, and luggage rendered in different colors depending on the material and temperature—every color but the red that would indicate explosive materials.15
It all made Keegan’s head ache. It was a familiar pain, that same deep ache in the absolute center of her skull when information overload and adrenaline collided. She’d first felt this way when out on patrol. Just when her unit needed to be at their most alert, they would be flooded with data streams, back then coming from drone feeds and satellites and officers back in an air-conditioned op-center trying to steer them one way or another. The AR rigs were supposed to take all that and boil it down into a “user-friendly tactical interface.” But it was still like trying to sip from a fire hose.
She took a deep breath and pushed the glasses to the top of her head. “I got nothing. You got anything?” she asked Noritz, who was likely toggling between the same video feed and whatever Griff was pushing out.
“Same here. Nada. But put your rig back on and just keep monitoring,” Noritz replied. He was watching her too.
As the line of police continued to move forward, it began to lose its cohesion, each officer moving off in a different direction, spreading out across the station. She saw Lieutenant Reynolds turn toward the escalator that led down to where the old food court had been in the belowground level of the station. A good idea.
“Understood. I’m going to head down to the good seats,” Keegan said. “Tell Griff to sweep the commuter train area and I’ll take the Freedom Lounge.” The entryway of the train station was where the majority of the foot traffic was, but killing the most people wasn’t always the goal of terrorism. Sometimes the play was to go for the most symbolic, the most likely to send a message.
As the escalator took Keegan down to the lower level of the station, she felt the pressure change as she crossed through a new wall of smell. Instead of piss, though, this one was of pumped-in oxygen and eucalyptus oil. At the base of the landing, the white Carrara marble floor shimmered with liquid waves, as if covered by a shallow reflecting pool. It was a projection of water mixed in with the blue text of a holo-ad. Keegan’s eyes didn’t pick up what it was for, though, instead surveying the room for faces.
Reynolds was in conversation with the Freedom Rail cop who’d been permanently stationed down here, both as an added layer of security and to deter the riffraff. He made eye contact with Keegan and said something quickly to the Freedom Rail guard, who waved her through.
Keegan began to walk slowly through the lounge, each step leaving the simulated appearance of a ripple of water on the marble. The lower-level food court had been converted as part of the Acela privatization deal. The original buyer had gone belly-up when their promise of trains going 800 miles per hour ran into the laws of physics, eminent domain politics, and unbridled inflation.16 But the ambitious design aesthetic lived on in the lounge, from the sleek black and silver Bauhaus benches to the projection on the wall celebrating the train’s passengers as not merely customers, but “visionaries of transportation’s future.”17
Down here, there were fewer pops on the facial recognition. The crimes also shifted, reflecting the clientele, meaning mostly white-collar hits. William Kellerman, in a gray pin-striped double-breasted suit: “illicit transaction designed to evade regulatory oversight.” Denise Aboud in a white pantsuit: “falsification of net asset values.” Here and there, though, the high and the low crossed. The gray-haired man in the pearlescent blue silk suit was Richard Reynolds: double entry, member of Congress from Delaware and multiple arrests for solicitation of a prostitute—no convictions.
Knowing the vizglasses were steering her to the visual cues, Keegan tried to shift her focus beyond, to see who and what wasn’t being called out by the data. An older man with a cane stood beside a woman in her mid-twenties checking her watch, an old-school wrist piece. Neither had any luggage, so Keegan could write them off as packing explosives. Indeed, the woman was hiding nothing at all, wearing skintight purple leggings and an even tighter tube top. A glossy white-legged robot stood beside her, one of the new Attendant models; it was unclear whether the bot was there to aid her, or sent by someone else to monitor her. Maybe a little bit of both?
Nearby was a possibility, a man with a large rolling suitcase and a duffel bag. A lot of carrying capacity. He was in a nice suit, but dated, a few years back in style, another tell. The man then went down to his knees and wrapped his arms around two young boys, twins maybe eight or nine years old.
As Keegan edged closer, though, she could hear the man apologizing: They couldn’t afford for all of them to move now, but Daddy had finally gotten a new job and he would come down from New Jersey every other week. Even more, now he’d be able to bring them back something special for their birthday next month. At that, a woman behind the man joined them, asking if the boys wanted ice cream on the way home.
There.
Just on the other side of them. Long black robe and black knit prayer cap. The man had a beard, but scraggly from being uncut for reasons of faith. He thumbed through screens on a tablet with his right hand, while his left hand gripped the handle of a battered rolling suitcase. He held it so tightly that it had turned the skin pale around the gold band on his ring finger.
That familiar feeling hit Keegan, and a single bead of sweat tracked down her back.
Keegan did the rapid double blink that ordered her vizglasses to take a snapshot and upload the image into the database.
She flicked at her collar as if dusting off lint, brushing her mic’s comms feed open to Noritz. “Tagged person of interest. Moving in closer to engage. Notify others
to converge,” she murmured.
In her lenses, a text message popped that there was no return on the face in the law enforcement database.
“Keegan, what are you doing?” said Noritz in her ear. “Continue search.”
Keegan took the vizglasses off and put them back in the case, slipping it back into her pocket. While wearing vizglasses wasn’t a tell that she was an agent, the lack of them would steer a suspect’s mind to think she was a civilian. Plus, she didn’t need the info overload now. She needed focus.
With the easy amble of someone lost in conversation, she began walking toward the family. “No. That is not what I said. Begin again . . . Order five hundred shares at fifteen hundred.”
At that, Noritz spoke again. “Keegan, put your viz back on and continue your search. We have you in the station’s video feed. I repeat, there is nothing on that individual’s profile to indicate SOA affiliation. I am overriding target designation. Move on.”
“No, no, no,” Keegan said, now slightly louder, gesticulating as if making her case. “Five. Hundred. At. Fifteen. Hundred. One. Thousand. Five. Hundred.” She crossed in front of the tearful family, the children looking up at the loud woman yelling at some call center chat bot. They were old enough to know that arguing with a machine never worked, but people who hadn’t grown up with them couldn’t help themselves.
“Stand. Down. Keegan!” Noritz again in her ear, this time more forcefully. “Data’s not indicating a target. Stand down. You’re going to create an incident you won’t recover from.”
“Dammit, NO!” Keegan said roughly, stopping in front of the family, her back to the man in the black robe. The parents looked over at her angrily.
“Hey, can you please have your call somewhere else?” the father asked.
“No,” said Keegan, her annoyed disbelief evident to anyone within 20 feet of her. “I didn’t say one thousand at five hundred, you fucking machine. Cancel!”
She could sense the man in the robe notice her, but Keegan kept her back to the target. She didn’t like positioning that way, but better to show physical disinterest.
“Let’s try it again, you dumbass machine.”
In the distance, she could see Lieutenant Reynolds squinting at her quizzically.
“Look, I’ve got my kids here.” The father again, a little louder this time. More eyes—and vizglasses—turned their way.
When was the last time she had been this close to somebody dressed like this? Keegan half expected a sensory flashback to the choking heat and the taste of dusty phlegm and gunpowder residue. But nothing manifested. She was still in Union Station.
“New order. Five. Hundred. At. One thousand and five hundred . . . And don’t fuck it up this time.”
The father moved the children behind him, his body straightening itself up as he found his confidence. “Ma’am, I’ve asked you politely. You really need to stop.”
“Agent Keegan,” Noritz said in her ear. “I am now ordering you to exit the area, and report to me. Cease operation.”
“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do,” Keegan said louder.
As she said it, she extended her left arm and wagged her finger at the father’s face, knowing that everyone around her would be drawn to it, including the man in the robe. At the same moment, an expandable metal baton slid from her sleeve into her right hand.18 In one fluid motion, Keegan swung it backward. She’d aimed for the chest, but with her back turned, her aim was slightly off. The baton impacted higher than she meant to, striking soft flesh of his neck. The snap of metal striking skin was followed an instant later by a sizzle as 75,000 volts passed from the baton into him.
The crowd screamed as the bearded man crumpled to the ground.
Then came the telltale puff of smoke.
FBI Domestic Special Detention Facility
Reston, Virginia
As she stretched her back out one more time, Keegan ran a finger down the wall, tracing the thin white dust collecting on the concrete.
Cleanup needed on Aisle Two.
Aisle Two was more technically Annex II of the FBI Domestic Special Detention Facility (DSDF).19 The “Dizz-Diff” was really just another term for the repurposed shopping center that now housed holding cells as well as one of FBI headquarters’ satellite offices. The developers’ plan had been a mixed retail and office park. The FBI’s plan had been to replace the old Hoover Building headquarters in downtown DC with a brand-new facility for all the FBI personnel in the greater Washington, DC, area.20 But the stock market’s collapse and congressional hearings into shady contracts had dashed both parties’ plans. So retail’s loss had been the federal government’s real estate gain. Keegan’s metal and black-felt office cubicle stood just about where stylish toddler pajamas were once sold.
It had been a good fifteen minutes of waiting so far, but Noritz taking his sweet time for the debriefing wasn’t going to have the effect he hoped. For Keegan, it was a moment to stretch, recheck the locks on her memories, and figure out what she was missing in the present. Sometimes a moment to do nothing more than think gave you an edge.
She stood with her back straight and felt herself and the nerve pain cluster calm down. As the pain receded, new sensations moved in to fill the void. Her shirt still felt clammy, chilling her in the harsh air conditioning, and she was getting hungry.
So when Noritz finally walked in with a coffee and a glazed donut for her, she eagerly took them.
“Pretty cliché, huh?” said Keegan.
Noritz chuckled, making a show of his offering. “Going to take more than a donut to make you a decent agent. Anyway, you earned it.”
That Noritz was wearing a suit and tie as late in the season as April marked him as management. His jet-black hair had about twice as much pomade as was needed, he was a head taller than Keegan, and he weighed at least 80 pounds more. Most of it was muscle, which should have made him an imposing physical presence. Yet from the beginning, Keegan had not been intimidated. From experience she knew that size mattered a lot less in a fight, so his physical bearing did not daunt her. It was also the way that Noritz had a smile that couldn’t be washed away during any meeting where higher-ups were present. He was a former Pennsylvania state trooper, and the assignment to the Washington Field Office had given him the glow of a AAA ballplayer who’d been called up to the big leagues. Still unable to believe his good fortune, he’d do anything to stay.
Noritz sat on the corner of Keegan’s desk and pulled out a tube of ChapStick, running it over his lips twice. This was the signal that he was moving into a part of the conversation that would be more awkward.
“Alright. Can you just let me in a bit on what went down? The takedown feed is all over gov and civ nets. You’re a hero for now, but this is going to bring us some problems until I can answer a key question.”
“You mean who is he?” Keegan asked, knowing the best way to divert a question was with another one. “Any hits?”
“None yet,” Noritz replied. “He’s not said shit since you brought him in. Facial rec and DNA are zeroes in our databases as well as state’s and local PDs’.”
“Have we run him through the civilian cloud yet?” she asked. She knew Noritz would lose his temper in a few moments, but his ambition was too easy to turn against him, especially once she had figured out how far she could push him.
“We’re working on expedited warrants for any cloud presence,” said Noritz. “But you know the drill. First their lawyers will argue about who needs to sign off on the warrant and then the engineers will come back and say end-to-end encryption means the info is not obtainable even with a warrant . . . Stop dodging,” he said, realizing he’d been taken off track. “You’re going to need an answer about how you knew he was the suspect. There were no sensor hits and his bag was shielded from the multispectral. I can’t just tell the director that the first person you decided to stun out in a 3,000-person crowd, luckily enough, just happened to be wheeling 22 pounds of Buckybomb.”
�
�Maybe I just love the smell of a cattle prod in the morning.”
Noritz rolled his eyes. “Alright, time for the serious part of the talk. Look, when we’re operating like that, I make the calls. That’s what keeps us all out of trouble. Just because you bagged the right bad guy doesn’t make what you did right. We can’t go around profiling like that, and we damn well can’t put it in a formal report that you picked him out of the crowd because he was Muslim.”
Keegan finished the donut and looked around for a napkin or tissue. Not finding one, she wiped her hands on her pants. “Sir, I didn’t detain the suspect because he’s a Muslim. Rather, it was because he isn’t.”
Noritz looked back at her and shook his head.
“We don’t have time for doublespeak,” Noritz said, more exasperated than angry, as they headed toward the interrogation room. “You’re going to need a clearer explanation than that for the formal report. You better hope you can get something out of the suspect, because your job may depend on it.”
Freedom Rail Station—Princeton Junction
Princeton, New Jersey
She was just a few years older than his son would have been.
Her look was mere costume for fighting the system. A choppy haircut and asymmetric reflective makeup that confused the facial recognition cameras—in her case, a wedgelike seven-sided shape on her left cheek and a half checkerboard on the right.21 Circular blue glass earrings etched with a dazzle array, most likely some kind of adversarial image designed to fool object recognition software into thinking it was seeing a frog or a turtle.22 Chunky-framed, dual-mode AR-VR glasses with smoked lenses that obscured her eyes. Probably cost as much as tuition did back in her parents’ day. All of it as much a fashion statement as an act of rebellion.
Looking the part but still just a kid—just as he’d always be.