Part I
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
--Ephesians 6:12
1.
The laptop case held a pistol.
The Smith & Wesson M&P9 fit easily, snug in the hole where Ryan had removed a slice from the underside of the case's foam padding. The top of the padding looked the same as before; the laptop still fit well, despite the gun. If you had pressed your hand against the foam all along the inside of the opened case, you would have felt the hardness of the weapon beneath; but Ryan doubted that security would go this far.
Ryan Szilard had worked the problem for only two weeks.
In the past, he thought, I would have enjoyed this. My heart would pound a little faster. I'd enjoy the prospect of breaking through someone's weak attempt at security. I would feel more alive.
He felt pretty much nothing, at the moment.
He opened the door of his car, stepped out, and walked towards the building.
It was about 2:00 in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day in the Washington DC metro area. The humidity was oppressive, and shimmers of heat rose from the car-park's concrete. The sky was blue and cloudless; the sun felt swollen and enormous in the sky. Sweat pooled in the small of his back after only a few seconds outside of the air conditioning. He was wearing a heavy pinstripe suit--he only ever wore a suit as a disguise, and he hated how it felt on him. He hurried to the doors of the target building; the sun reflected off on the mirrored windows of its twenty stories, making the concrete he walked across doubly bright.
Ryan had always preferred the night to the day, but one of the requirements had been that the break-in occur during the day.
When the automatic glass doors shimmed closed behind him, he surveyed the obstacles visible before him. Ryan was methodical. He had planned this quickly; but he had still planned it carefully.
First obstacle: Get through the card-operated turnstyle, while watched by the guards.
The cards necessary to operate the turnstyle were issued by the Department of Homeland Security--well, by a contractor who worked for the Office of Internal Affairs within the Department of Homeland Security. Regulations for this building required that the authentication information for the cards reside in a database physically separated from the internet. Szilard was currently about 98% confident that these regulations had not been followed; this was because he had illicitly inserted authentication information for the card in his pocket into the relevant database one week ago. There was the possibility that he had hacked into a honeypot, rather than the real thing. But he was reasonably confident that he had not.
He slid the laminate over the glass of the turnstyle. There was a beep, and a green light appeared. So far, so good.
Second obstacle: Show the guards his photo id, walk through a metal detector, and put his briefcase through the X-ray machine.
The hard part of making the card, of course, had been hacking into the database; making a realistic-looking laminated photo id was tremendously easy. The makerspace that Ryan belonged to had a machine that could print, complete with a shiny hologram-like strip, any ID card you wished. No one at the makerspace seemed quite willing to admit why they owned the machine. Ryan handed his card over to the guard without making eye contact, humming along to the music playing through his earbuds.
He was listening to music, of course. Guards were watching for people acting nervous. Someone listening to music appeared oblivious, and therefore not a threat. He chewed gum for the same reason. He hummed, just to irritate the guard a trifle, as the lyrics continued in his ears.
She scanned the card, looked at his face briefly, and handed it back. He put the laptop case on the conveyor belt leading through the X-ray machine, walked through the metal detector, and started browsing the internet on his phone as his briefcase went through the X-ray. He flipped through an online magazine about architecture as the briefcase slid through.
His laptop case had metal inserts in it. The composition of the metal was the precise kind necessary for blocking the entirety of the frequency of electromagnetic radiation that this X-ray machine used; he had determined what kind of X-ray machine was used simply by wandering by the entrance of the building a week and a half earlier. Because of the metal, his entire suitcase would appear to be a featureless, rectangular slab on the X-ray's screen. The gun would be invisible, hidden behind the metal shield.
There were, of course, problems with this.
As his case slid out of the machine, a guard approached him.
"Would you mind opening your briefcase, sir?"
Huh. Security was usually more lax. Ryan removed his earbuds.
"Excuse me?" he said, tucking the gum in his mouth behind the line of his teeth. "I didn't catch that."
"Would you mind opening your briefcase?"
"Oh, sure," he said, and unlocked and opened the case. His laptop, resting in a sleeve inside the case, was visible, as were a few pens and pieces of paper. Ryan helpfully lifted the sleeved laptop to show there was nothing beneath it.
"Thank you," said the guard. "That's quite a large laptop case."
"No problem, and thanks," Ryan said, reinserting his earbuds. He started walking away from the entrance, down a marble-panelled hallway. With each step, his Oxford-encased feet made noises that echoed briefly before dying away. He could see his reflection in the mottled marble siding. There were only a few other suits in the hallways; the lunch rush would have just ended--and people in this building probably worked through lunch, anyhow. His destination was on the same floor, so there was no need to worry about an elevator.
Part of the reason I don't care about this, Ryan thought, is that this is too easy. He had no individual opponent, really.
No one actually cared about security in a facility like this, despite the impressive apparatus. There was a security systems designer, who cared about making a system that would be approved and never get him in trouble. There was someone who had written the regulations the designer followed; there were contractors who carried them out, who did not care as long as their got their money. But no single person was responsible for the security, ultimately. Breaking into a system designed by a single person was more interesting; it was like reading an argument conceived of by a single mind, or fencing with a single person. A system like this was like an argument written by committee; it hardly held itself together firmly enough to shatter when you hit it.
After someone analyzed his break-in, they would come to the conclusion that no single person could be blamed for the flaw--which was precisely why he was able to break in, in the first place.
Not that you would care about this, even if it were more difficult, a little voice in his head said.
Oh, shut up, he thought.
He approached the third obstacle: A fingerprint controlled doorway, with another guard standing in an alcove near it.
As he walked towards it, Ryan could feel his pulse against the earbuds. Still the same as always.
He put his free hand into a pocket, and fit the rubber fingerprint-spoofing cap over his index finger. It was thin enough that the scanner would still feel the warmth of his finger; it was thick enough to cover up his own fingerprint, and replace it with the fingerprint of someone authorized.
The guard glanced at him as he approached, and he didn't bother to make eye contact. The guard was only here to prevent anyone from tailing someone else through the door.
He raised his rubber-coated finger and put it on the pad. The difficult part had been finding out what kind of fingerprint scanner was installed. Well, that and obtaining the fingerprint. Different scanners demanded different spoofing techniques.
The door unlocked, and slid open. He stepped through and it shut quietly behind him.
He was now in what was supposedly one of the most secure locations in the DHS. A part of him thought it should look much, much more impressive than it did; the hallway he was in looked like hallways in office buildings around the globe. There were no windows, true. The hallways seemed hermetically sealed, save for a few doors in it. But other than that, it was all very disappointing. He knew valuable information sat in the servers he could access through the doors to the left--part of him wanted to enter that room with a flash drive and bring some of it back with him. It would be valuable. Probably. Maybe. Fencing it would have been difficult as hell--but on the other hand, he didn't really care about money, right now, at least any more than he cared about anything else.
Anyhow, that wasn't part of the task.
Third door on the right, he told himself. His footsteps had grown quiet; this place was carpeted rather than tiled. Outside the door he stopped, and took a breath. I probably should try for some kind of big entrance, he told himself. Some kind of a surprise. At least a good, snappy one-liner. Nothing came to mind.
That's because you know you don't give a fuck about any of this, the little voice said.
He sighed, and opened the door without knocking.
Inside, a large, red-faced man with a prematurely receding hairline was working on a computer. The room was a standard, blandly-furnished office. He looked up at Ryan. His eyes lit with recognition; then with surprise; and finally with irritation. The man spoke.
"God. Fucking. Damnit. And damn you too, Ryan."
"It's good to see you too, Braden," Ryan said, and despite himself smiled a little.
"The security test had another four weeks to go, Ryan," Braden said, standing up. "You could have waited a bit longer. I had expected it."
"I had counted on that," Ryan said, and shrugged. He extended his hand to shake Braden's, but found Braden hugging him instead.
"How long has it been? I heard you were assigned to this test, and knew you'd get in somehow. But I haven't seen you in... I don't even know. It's been at least six months since I last saw you. At that barbecue I had. It's been forever."
"Yeah," Ryan said.
"How did you get in?" Braden said.
Ryan shrugged. "It wasn't really hard. I got into your contractor's card authentication database easily; I pretended to be a computer technician to some senior management, used his password, and everything was easy from there. For the scanner I got a fingerprint from a glass bottle used by someone I drank with nine days ago, and made a rubber spoof from that. It's all in the report."
Ryan set his laptop case on the desk as he was speaking, clicked it open, and handed a twenty-page report to Braden. Braden put it into a pile on the desk. Ryan adjusted the fit of his laptop inside the case, running his fingers all along the inside of the case. Then he snapped the case shut again.
"Of course it wasn't hard for you," Braden said, throwing the report onto an already structurally unsound pile of other papers. "I'm sure the report will be fine. How's working for the government been, though?"
Ryan shrugged again. "It's a job."
"You're managed by... what's his face, over at the Rockeville building."
"Michael Suprenant."
"Hah. That blowhard."
"Careful. He is your peer."
"I didn't hire him and he didn't hire me. I don't have to like him. He's a blowhard."
Ryan smiled, or at least pretended to. Braden spoke again.
"Are you enjoying the work that you get there? A lot of challenges?"
Ryan contemplated lying. But making up fiction was too much effort.
"Really... no. Most of what I do is bullshit. Python scripts can handle most of what I'm expected to do. I play games a fair amount."
"Huh," Braden said, and laughed. "Careful. I could tell your boss. He is my peer."
"Even so," Ryan said.
Ryan had been acquainted with Braden since undergrad. He hadn't really gotten to know him, though, till during grad school, when they had both studied computer science in a Master's program--Ryan had not approved of Braden's decision to get a government job afterwards, but Braden hadn't been consumed by the desire to create new, wonderful and world-changing artificial intelligences, like Ryan had been. Instead, Braden had apparently been consumed by the older and more traditional desire to make biological intelligences--he had married, and had picked a secure, undemanding job so he could pay attention to his wife and children. He now had... Ryan could not remember how many children. Three? Surely not so soon.
And of course I cannot complain about his unambitiousness now, Ryan thought. He himself had now had a year of government employment in information security. A year of staring at the ceiling and blowing spit bubbles and doing nothing. The ... event two years ago had broken him, and he was coming to doubt that time would ever remedy the injury.
But he didn't want to think about that now. He focused on what Braden was saying--he had been saying something.
"And a report actually just came in, that you might be interested in," Braden said. "You played The Fall of Asgard, right?"
"Actually, no," Ryan said. "I didn't, really."
"Oh. But you know what it is?"
"A cooperative shooter with a good AI--I think I read a Penny Arcade comic about how hard it was. Like Satan incarnate, apparently."
"Well, yes. Also infamously gory. My wife doesn't want me playing it when the kids are around."
"But you're mentioning this... because the lead developer for that was an AI researcher," Ryan said, memories slowly coming unlocked in the back of his head. He rumaged around in that old and dusty part of his brain. "Before she quit, she was a leading researcher in artificial general intelligence, I mean."
Ryan frowned. It was weird, finding that he still could recall all this. Using the information made him feel like a person he no longer felt that he was.
"I read some of her papers," Ryan continued, because he had to say something. "They were pretty good."
"They were brilliant," Braden said, shuffling through some other papers, causing a small paper-landslide, before he found what he wanted. "Apparently we got some kind of report on her work, part of the MAGIK program, you know. To do with potential breakthroughs in algorithms with military applications. So I just got this report"--he handed a thirty-page sheaf of paper to Ryan--"which is supposed to be important. The news is apparently that her work on The Fall of Asgard resulted in some kind of AI which might have military significance. Pretty interesting stuff."
Ryan nodded.
"I haven't read it. But I thought you might like to. This will be going to Michael's department, in any event, and I thought you'd be interested in coming up with a recommendation based on it."
Ryan glanced very quickly at the paper. He unsnapped his case and slid it inside quickly.
"Sure," he said.
Braden looked at him oddly.
"Are you ok?" Braden said. "I would have thought you'd be thrilled by having something interesting to read. Something relating to, you know, what you actually care about. Not all this paper pushing."
Ryan took a breath.
"I'm fine. Just a bit tired. The adrenaline of breaking into here is wearing off, you know."
"Ok," Braden said. "Why don't you come over to dinner at my place some time? I know Christine would love to see you, and we haven't had you in forever."
"Maybe," Ryan said, and closed the laptop case. "I've been pretty busy."
"I really mean that," Braden said. "I'm sorry I haven't asked you over more--but you know, kids. But really, you need to come over."
"Ok," Ryan said again.
Braden looked at him, as if expecting Ryan to say more, but Ryan remained silent.
"I should be going," Ryan said.
"If you say so."
They set up a time to review Ryan's report on the failures of the government security. Braden shot an email to Michael Suprenant and cc'd Ryan. Ryan returned to his car, after having endured another of Braden's hugs. It was only 4:12 when he sat back down in the seat. That meant, with beltway traffic, it would be at least 5:30 before he arrived, if he tried to drive back to his office. So he decided to drive to his place in DC.
His apartment was in a 30-story building in Virginia, close to DC. He had a miniature bathroom, miniature living room and miniature bedroom, along with a tiny balcony. The view from the balcony was solely of other condos. His first thought on seeing them, when he had moved there a year ago, was that they all looked like mass-produced Soviet bloc architecture from the early 80s: identical, square, and ugly as hell. He hated it--it was the first place he had rented entirely apart from any real sight of trees or creeks or flowers or foliage. He wondered, not for the first time, why he had rented this place, rather than any of the more pleasant locations he could have afforded.
The first thing he did after arriving was remove his jacket and shirt. He walked onto the balcony and smoked a cigarette, looking at the yellowing cement of the buildings around him, at the cars and people crawling slowly on the ground below him, and at the few clouds slowly creeping across the sky in a breeze he could not feel. He smoked the cigarette all the way to the filter and threw it to the balcony floor.
Back in his apartment, he set laptop case back on his bed and opened it. He tossed the laptop on the bed, removed the foam, and took out the pistol.
Smuggling the gun in had not been part of the security test.
He had hoped smuggling it would provide some kind of thrill. Or at least, that was what I told myself, he thought. Honestly, I'm not sure why I brought it. Maybe I want to be fired. Or maybe I want something else.
Something else.
The wet rain glancing off a windshield as he drove. Amy, squeezing his hand. The feeling of peace.
And a sudden squeal of tires, and an impact--
No, not now.
He was still holding the gun. He hit the magazine release, and the clip dropped on the floor; he pulled the slide, popping the chambered round in the gun into the air and on to the rug; and he quickly raised the emptied gun to his temple.
"Bang," he said, squeezing the trigger and feeling the hammer hit the emptied chamber.
Suicidal ideation with role-playing, check.
He tossed the gun on to the ground, and sat down at his desk.
He wasted time on some urban design and architecture blogs for a while, as was his custom. But after a few minutes, he realized he was just looking at pictures. He had stopped pretending to read the text of articles a while ago. But at least they were not like artificial intelligence articles--there were pictures to look at.
I haven't done artificial-intelligence related things in a while, he thought. In a very long while. He thought of the paper Braden had given him; he could read it tonight if he wanted. Hanna... something. She had written that one paper he had never read, General Word Reference Intelligence Systems. It was recent, he thought--released less than two years ago. (Why did that have to be the way that he dated everything now? Before or after The Event. You could feel the capitals. Fuck.) In any event, Hanna's paper hadn't been something he had had a chance to incorporate in his project. Or rather, it hadn't been something they had had a chance to incorporate into their project.
He opened the folder that contained their -- well,now my -- project on artificial general intelligence, and opened up the git record of changes to the code repository. The record contained a mix of commits from himself (rszilard) and only one other user (akapitsa).
The last change to the code, the last commit, had been from her. There was a short message describing the code alteration she had made. "Worked on a functioning proof to guarantee value retention during self modification. Can't have our baby getting away from us."
The change had been made a little over two years ago; the code had not been changed since. Two years ago today she had died. He closed the folder and turned off power to his computer. He walked to the cupboard, and removed a bottle of whiskey. It was only a third full, he thought, but it would probably be sufficient for the night.
It couldn't stop the dreams, though.
That night he dreamed, again, that they were talking. He didn't know where they were. The dreams took place in a kind of foggy nowhere, with glimpses of past and present locations from around the world surrounding him. They were talking about what he had just done that day, as if she were alive in the present--she mentioned a few ways he could have made his infiltration of the government building even more successful, and dramatic. As always, he was impressed by her acuity, and told her so.
"That's too bad," she said.
And her skin began to melt, and her eyes to shrivel, and Ryan tried to grab her wrists to keep her from dying, but she was falling away from him and falling to pieces as her hair fell out and her skin sagged, and Ryan realized that he was gripping her too tightly and now he had torn her wrists from her arms and blood gushed from the stumps, and he was just holding her twisted hands as the rest of her body fell down and shattered on the ground as it disintegrated into a skeleton, so there was nothing left but bleach-dried bones and the scattered remains of a long-dead thing, and he realized that he had killed her, and was alone in the desert with her skeleton, and would be alone forever and ever.