FICTION - Underworld by Max Hillebrand pt. 1
Fabian Sixsmith leaned closer to the screen. A couple of white pixels fizzed through the frame, and the hairs on his arm prickled. It had to be her. The blonde. Underworld’s most wanted — T1n4Red.
It was nearing daybreak in Lewistown, Montana. The end of yet another 14-hour shift at the DoS facility. Pulling fourteens was tough on his body, but it reduced the time it would take for Fabian to gain promotion to agent. Working at the Department of Surveillance came with the serious drawback of being labeled a snoop, but agents could be free — solid pension credits and private property. But today, he would not slink back to his closet-sized studio for buttered noodles and two hours on the velobike. Today would be the day he proved his work was responsible for locating T1n4Red. Her crimes were manifold; her methods were meticulous. Operating encrypted communication networks and thousands of transaction joins to obfuscate Underworld finances. Fabian flipped the plastic cover of the alarm on his console and pressed the button.
Agent Williams appeared behind him in seconds. The babble of voice commands in the CCTV facility cut to zero. “Situation update, Operative Sixsmith.”
Liquidating the bad guys had been the dream ever since his father lost his college fund to a hacker. Cypherpunks came in all guises, and some could phish credits from careless Boston drunks and cover their tracks with encryption. Fabian opened the dossier on his desk. “Tier 1 target located. DNA confirmation requested from ground team.” He was certain. So many nights following encoded messages he found hidden data in images on the public comms ledger. Many were drop sites for the scumbags who delivered supplies to the Underworld in exchange for bitcoin — the only money the government couldn’t meter out and strip away automatically. That pixel of white had to be her blonde hair vanishing, once again, underground.
“Enhance the facial image,” said Williams.
There was no clear image to enhance. Fabian would have some explaining to do if he was wrong. Except he couldn’t be wrong. Those pixels had been his life for the last ten months. Finally, he had trapped her. Straightening his glasses, he prepared his reply. “I can bring up the drop locations from the LSB ima—”
“Operative. What is the protocol required to initiate a Tier 1 alert?”
Fabian could feel the heat of his boss’s glare. “Agent, there is insufficient facial recognition data, but if you give me a minute…” He had captured dozens of steganographical messages — locations, account numbers, usernames. Hiding messages in plain sight was apparently how cypherpunks avoided detection with such ease.
Williams was already patching through to the ground team on his Neurocomms link. “What’s your ETA on the location?” He furrowed his brow. “Copy that... proceed.” Turning towards Fabian, he snapped his fingers. “My office. Now.”
According to Fabian’s calculations, the ground team would report back with the DNA scan in three to four minutes. When they got a match, she’d be toast. T1n4Red would be underground forever; if she resurfaced, the dronecopters would gun her down in minutes. He just had to stall Williams until the confirmation came through. That might be the only way to avoid his first ever sanction. Having a blemish on record would set his lifeplan back by several months. He thought about requesting a comfort break on the system, but Williams would deny it. Fabian stood up purposefully. He arranged the chair and a few items on the desk, then dragged his feet all the way to the office.
Each agent in the DoS facility had an area of control around the size of a football field. Their 12’ by 12’ office comprised the only enclosed space and was positioned in the middle of rows upon rows of desks. Four walls of two-way mirrored glass formed the raised office cube — a mini panopticon within the greater panopticon of DoS. The agent sat in the swivel chair and swung his feet onto the desk. “You better be right about this, Sixsmith, or you’re done here.”
Fabian’s heart beat like a heavy bass kick. The perfectly calibrated 67-degree air didn’t stop him from wanting to loosen his tie. When he jammed his fingers down the small gap between his neck and collar, they came out slick with sweat. All those nights chasing. The tabulations, the data models, the transcripts from Underworld detainees, the ciphers he’d decoded — they all seemed like a game. A dream. He was the grizzled sheriff finally placing the noose around the neck of the uncatchable outlaw. He knew that in sixty seconds or so, the ground team would confirm a DNA match, and it would be impossible for T1n4Red to resurface without physical liquidation. “I’m sure, sir. This was the only way. We’d never get a facial match on a Tier 1.”
The agent looked at the communicator on his desk. Nothing.
Did T1n4Red eat buttered noodles and work out in her underground living closet? Did she crave for the feel of a paperback novel, or perhaps own a non-cataloged copy? It’s not like she could step foot inside the state knowledge center. “What action will DoS—”
Ground Unit Bravo to Williams. Do you copy?
“This is Williams. Over.”
Bravo commander confirmed the DNA match. It was her. She would now be classified a subverter. The payment instructions she had etched into the self-repair polymer bench had been photographed. Any wallet receiving those coins would be investigated. The fintech arm would already be working on liquidating affiliated Overworld accounts. One wrong turn and they can shut down your life’s wealth.
But T1n4Red was smarter. DoS would always be one step behind the cypherpunks because they were bound by government protocol, unable to infiltrate the Level 3 realm of encrypted private comms. Fabian had to take risks. What use was all his dedication if it just led to being remaining on the outside of a panopticon looking in?
“You can leave.” Williams motioned to the office door. “Your shift was over sixteen minutes ago.”
The State Knowledge Center smelled of the past. That’s what Fabian liked about it. He turned the page, savoring the quality feel of thick paper, imagining that when this book ran through enough hands, the inked fibers would run from black to gray to cream-white and the story would be gone. These were some of the only off Ledger items left in the country.
Wild Country Outlaws was Fabian’s sanctuary from the pressures of his job. All fiction was based on the kind of truth that needed to survive. Back to the times when eyes touched words without being digitally tracked, when citizens could own things. He read a paragraph and closed his eyes to imagine how life was back then. The cavernous knowledge center, with its hard seats and CCTV lenses transformed into lush plains and steep hills. Fabian felt the warm breeze on his face and the muscles of the horse beneath him. The two rifles slung on his back would shoot those boys dead. No one would take his property. His wife, children, his lame brother, hell, the whole damned village of Lewistown depended on his cattle to provide.
Of course, land could only be leased now. Livestock too. Those rustlers would have a hard time taking anything without public subscription fees and pre-taxed profits coming out. And if they wanted, the Department of Property could rescind custody of any item and confiscate it. Fabian’s smart-band vibrated, indicating he had just ten minutes of reading time left. The thing buzzed too hard. It pinched, but like all sanctioned hardware, it was government hard-coded.
He hadn’t been able to focus this time. Not really. Was T1n4Red an outlaw or a rancher? Either way, she was fighting the system that had stripped Americans of their right to call their house a home. According to the Department of Education, pre-ledger days were violent wealth-disparity wars, but the novels Fabian read painted a different picture — a fantasy freedom where ordinary citizens could build wealth.
Fabian rose to go. He handed the book to the desk girl and watched her scan it into the system. His smart-band buzzed again with a compliance point. To think his friends chased these stupid tokens for avatar upgrades and paid-time-off options. But, without them, he might end up with his ID frozen like his high school buddy, Scott, cut off from all legal avenues to earn a living and watched like a hawk by DoS. Did he have a secret stash of satoshis that kept him clear of the state debtors’ facility?
The lady at the desk smiled. Her brown bob remained undisturbed by the air cooling system. “We hope you enjoyed your trip into our analog archives, Fabian.”
“Sure. See you next time, Miranda.” He breezed out. They had history, but it wasn’t something he was interested in repeating. Imagine the conversations about cataloging systems and the internal squabbles of the Knowledge Center board. Fabian was already in a committed relationship with the powers of his imagination. Explicit videos were far too risky for a DoS worker to use, but the image of T1n4Red’s full lips and blond hair invaded his dreams. They could run a ranch together, or maybe they’d be cattle rustlers on the run. He wasn’t sure why, but every night, Fabian masturbated to the one rendered CGI model of T1n4Red they had on file. On the outside, his life was the ultimate mundanity, but the thrill of T1n4Red, the taste of the air on the great ranches outside the city, the sheer danger of even thinking all this, was the only way he could sleep.
They watched the pollination drone flit between the hibiscus flowers in the thick air of the botanical biodome. Fabian had been lucky to receive two of the limited daily visitor passes. It was even luckier for Scott, who now had the chance to get out of his mom’s dingy basement for a few hours.
“You know why they made them bigger than bees, right?” Scott spoke out of the side of his mouth. When Fabian shrugged, he leant in to inspect the device hovering around eye level. He blew a kiss and waved at its pollen-collector end.
“You don’t know that.”
Scott turned and swept his lank hair off his forehead. “You're the one who checks the footage, snoop.”
Micro cameras were yet another panopticon in the armory of the State. You had to assume, even when lying in bed with a lover, even when going to the toilet, that it was possible you were recorded, watched, and analyzed even years later. Secrecy was a virus DoS sought to eradicate.
The biosphere wristband on Fabian’s right arm sounded. Closing time was fast approaching. Fabian put a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “You know, there was a time when access to nature wasn’t so strictly controlled.” He stopped himself from saying more.
They joined the crowds heading to the exit down the palm pathway. “You heard about the latest blacklist?” asked Scott. “The mixnets are awash with it.”
Fabian’s neck muscles tightened. “You shouldn’t be telling me you’re on those forums.” Until he became an agent, even Fabian was prohibited from accessing the decentralized ‘Level 2’ network.
Scott laughed. It was the first time Fabian had heard him laugh that day. “That’s the fun of this little game, homie. Encoding and decrypting ciphers is living. It’s all I got apart from running from debt.” He lowered his voice. “My identity is already in prison, but I ain’t going too.”
Glancing left then right, Fabian made a decision. It was a decision to offer information to a friend, a true friend who had no reason to stick by him when all others cut ties. Sharing a secret in the meatspace was the biggest risk Fabian had taken in years, but he had no way to do it digitally.
“I was behind it.” He expelled a sigh.
Scott turned his head. They carried on walking towards the exit in the throng of people. A few seconds passed.
Fabian scratched at the mole above his eye. “Spent months unraveling stego messages. I feel like I know her. Like really know her.” Was he saying this out of pride or trepidation? Even if they ended in constrained mediocrity, lifeplans were so beautifully simple. Tina, Williams, the ranch, avenging his father’s bankruptcy, the forums, the caution, it all seemed so jumbled. “Maybe I’m in love.” What was Fabian saying? However long T1n4Red lasted underground, she’d never be able to surface again.
Scott bumped Fabian by stepping across his path. “Not in the meatspace. Keep checking the images. There’s a lot more hiding in plain sight than you know.”
They walked in silence through the automated exit gate into the gray city air. As they departed, Scott turned back and called out, “Right pocket.”
Sure enough, Fabian felt the weight of a ‘brick’. He had held one of the untethered devices once in DoS training. Without even putting his hand into his pocket he knew that it was there and what it meant. Decentralized forum instructions would be written on an attached note. The code would be something only he and Scott knew. T14nRed and the entire underworld were now at his fingertips.
