Halting State

Register—never mind that it’s poisoned, full of bogus records—the ID cards themselves use last-generation public- key encryption that a quantum processor can break almost instantly. And if Team Red have got a copy of the backbone keys, they can impersonate anyone they want to be, up to a point. The content engine can fake the ID of the first minister, but it still takes a voice actor to impersonate the first minister on the phone, right? So they’ve got this amazing backdoor, but wherever possible, they’re doing stuff via the net. And as the net is so heavily surveilled, they’re focussing on the bits that are hardest to monitor—stuff that goes on inside the big distributed games in Zonespace, where the rules change from minute to minute, and the players can implement their own in-game game engines.”

“Right. Right.” She nods, her expression intent. “So we’ve got these two, uh, clans. Teams? Red versus Blue, playing for Scotland or Poland. And it’s all happening quietly when Chen and his accomplice…?”

“Chen’s over here, being a pair of hands for Team Red. And he’s got access to their key cracker back home, and he thinks, why shouldn’t I make some money on the side? It’s typical, really: Great plan, but the operational security is blown wide open because a team member got greedy and ran a bank robbery in Avalon Four. Which must have netted him, oh, all of about ten thousand euros’ worth of loot, and maybe a death sentence from the Guoanbu when they find out. Which is why he was so desperate to spill his guts when we showed up.” Unconsciously, you find yourself rubbing your ribs. Right where the pocket with your keyboard was. “Jesus. He probably thought we were zombies closing on him, and we were going to put him in a taxi.”

“The taxi was already waiting.” Elaine shudders delicately. “We weren’t its real target, we were just the useful idiots who were going to shanghai Chen. Only we screwed up.” She’s staring at you, you realize.

Timing is everything. (But at least the mummy lobe has shut its trap, leaving you to coldly consider the picture with your Spy Sensibility, or maybe your Gamer’s Gonads.) “I was arrested in Amsterdam.”

“Yes?” She sits up straighter.

“On Friday night, last week. The bank robbery on the Island of Valiant Dreams happened on Thursday morning, didn’t it? Triggering Michaels’s man-trap.”

“The man who never was, Nigel MacDonald—the fake identity built around your resume.” She’s still staring at you. It’s as if you’ve fallen into the centre of her world. “How long have you been playing SPOOKS?”

“Huh? Like I said, I did it years ago—on-the-job research, actually.”

“Okay.” She makes deliberate eye contact. “So you expect me to believe that Hayek Associates had a Jack- shaped hole in its corporate structure just waiting for Mr. Chen to try a penetration attack on them?”

“No, I—” You look away, embarrassed. Then an idea surfaces in your imagination like an iceberg. It’s too preposterous for words, but it fits the observable facts—“whoops.”

“Yes?” She leans forward.

“What if the whole reason STEAMING was shitcanned last week was because Michaels was planning to hire me anyway? Or rather…they’ve got a hole in their org chart with my name on it—or rather, ‘Nigel MacDonald,’ but I’m there if they need to activate me—and it’s not the only hole, they’ve probably got a bunch of other ones. Hell, there’s probably an agency somewhere with an Elaine-Barnaby-shaped hole in it by any other name, just waiting. Let’s suppose Michaels already had the wind up that something shitty was stinking up the Beijing gutters, and was getting ready to activate a counter-espionage unit to go looking for it. He was planning on running most of the team via SPOOKS, but he’d need some clueful people on the inside—I suspect he tapped me for the job of GM. But then the robbery pointed to the bad guys having penetrated a lot further than anyone realized, and the idiot marketing manager called in the cops. So he ensured that when you asked for a native guide, I was hired”—you flash back to that weird interview, with Mr. Pin-Stripe and Mr. Grey and the not-quite-right uncanny valley graphical overlay—“and he probably leaned on your boss to make sure you were left up here because, after all, you’re one of his pawns.”

“Sounds plausible. I think you’re right about him tapping you for a job—but it’s not just the matter of your old employment being terminated. I think he had you arrested in Amsterdam just to drive you home with your tail between your legs.” She puts her coffee mug down.

“Agh!” The mummy lobe manages to blurt out an indignant denial of your innocence, then shuts down in complete catatonic withdrawal.

She grins at you impishly. “That’s how I’d have done it, anyway.”

“You have an evil mind!”

“And this is a bad thing how, exactly?”

You find yourself returning her grin. “We’re going to need it if we’re going to figure out what Barry isn’t telling us. As long as you can remember only to use your powers for good.”

“I’ll do my best. But anyway, Team Red are dug in, they can listen in on any communications in Scotland, and they can crack any of the common encryption systems in use.” She looks dubious. “Are we safe?”

“I don’t know. Certainly Barry’s man-behind-the-curtain operation has got stuff that Team Red don’t know about or can’t break. And”—another iceberg heaves into view—“I think I just got it.”

“Got what?” She looks anxious. “Is it catching?”

“Skill set: Nigel MacDonald. Let’s suppose…yeah. Let’s say Barry got wind of Team Red’s existence and also got wind of Chen’s little bank robbery before it happened. Yes? Or even just the capability Chen had tucked up his post-graduate-student sleeve. ‘Nigel MacDonald’ shows up, encourages Chen to do the deed, then vanishes after the robbery. Team Red are trying to figure out what the ingenious Mr. Chen was up to, and they realize MacDonald has done a runner, so they focus on him as the accomplice. Then I turn up in their trawl, and—”

Her eyes go wide. “Carry on, Nigel.”

Nigel? It’s not a name you’d have picked for yourself, but if the hat fits…

“Whoops. They set me up—and you—to go and poke Team Red with a pointy stick, and Team Red are primed to think that I’m their rogue member’s partner, right? They don’t know what Nigel MacDonald looks like, other than through his NIR entry. Shit, I bet you he’s my spitting image!”

“What’s the opposite of identity theft? Identity donation?” She shakes her head. “Okay, so they’ve set you up as bait for Team Red. So that makes me…the sniper. Right?” She stands up. “Where’s the bathroom?”

You point wordlessly and track her as she heads upstairs. The street light filtering through the hall window outlines the calves of her legs beneath the robe, drawing your eyes after her. It’s as if your mind is split three ways. Part of you is still trying to assimilate the fact that the other side play for keeps, and you are it. Not the People’s Republic of Scotland, but you, personally, are facing the sharp end of the best and the brightest of the Chinese Ministry of State Affairs, and you are not qualified to dabble in their games. Another part of you is now almost certain that Elaine is considering inviting you to play a different game, the oldest game there is—and the mummy lobe is tongue-tied and stricken with horror, realizing that, if you take up her invitation, you’ll have to explain both your little problems…And, finally, there’s the little fact that you’re playing a game you don’t understand the rules of against an artificial reality engine that Barry Michaels says has taken Elsie hostage, and that he thought it’d be a good idea to cross-link your National Identity Register files with those of an imaginary double agent. Slick public-school dog- fucker.

With a creak of floor-boards, Elaine sits down beside you on the futon, graceful and elegant as only a gawky collection of librarian-shaped elbows and knees can be. “I’m trying to figure out what they expect me to do,” she says, arranging the dressing-gown so that it covers her bare toes. “And you,” she adds. “I know what role you’re meant to play, but who am I?”

She’s eerily focussed, and you’re not entirely sure which game she’s talking about at this point. “Who do you want to be?” you ask, not quite looking at her directly.

“I think”—she licks her upper lip nervously—“I want to be a spook.” Her pupils are wide and black in the twilight. “I know what I don’t want to be.”

“Well, then. I think you’re already halfway there. You’re a forensic analyst with a security clearance, and you’re positioned so uncomfortably close to, uh, ‘Nigel MacDonald’ that if Team Red are tracking our meatspace location, they’ll figure MacDonald is under extreme close-up examination.”

“But that’s not what you should have asked,” she says, nodding at the stack of dead home-entertainment gear.