Ken MacLeod - Intrusion

She was still pondering this when, quite unexpectedly, the doorbell rang.

Hope checked on her glasses who was outside, and saw the avatar of Fiona Donnelly, the health visitor. She jumped up, took off her glasses, cast off the grubby apron and, without thinking, hastily wrapped and tied herself into the big ruffle-bordered floral-patterned pinafore. Now why had she done that ? she wondered for a moment. She glanced in the mirror, tucked back a stray strand of hair, felt the slick of sweat on her brow, saw the flushed look of busy domesticity – harried, married – realised it was exactly the image she wanted to present to her visitor, then went to open the door.

Fiona Donnelly stood in sunshine amid catkins with bees crawling on them.

‘Hello, Hope. Mind if I drop by?’

‘Come in, come in,’ said Hope. She waved at the outside before she shut the door. ‘Quite a change since the last time you were here!’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Fiona, heading through to the kitchen without further invitation. Hope followed, perplexed.

‘Have a seat,’ she said, but Fiona had already sat down, her back to the window, just as she’d done in March. She looked around and inhaled appreciatively. ‘Mmm, something smells good.’

‘Tonight’s dinner.’

‘Oh, well done.’ Then she just sat there.

‘Cup of tea?’ Hope asked.

‘Yes, thanks, I’m parched.’

Hope busied herself.

‘Everything all right?’ she asked, sitting down.

‘Not really, I’m afraid,’ said Fiona.

‘Oh,’ said Hope. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘You told Dr Garnett last week that you were going to take the fix, and you still haven’t,’ said Fiona.

‘How would you know that?’ Hope demanded.

‘Oh come on, Hope, it would show up on your monitor-ring log.’

‘Have you been checking that?’ Hope asked.

‘Why shouldn’t I? I’m concerned. I’m even more concerned that you drank alcohol last week. You tried to conceal it by taking your ring off, but there were still traces in the morning.’

‘It was only a few sips.’ Hope essayed a smile. ‘Half a dram.’

‘That’s not the point, and you know it. But what’s really concerning me, Hope, and believe me this is for your own good, is how it impacts what’s been happening recently to your personal profile. It’s coming dangerously close to affecting your parental suitability.’

Hope felt a cold clutch of dismay.

‘What?’ she said. She couldn’t think of anything other than that one lapse to make her feel guilty, but feel guilty she did, mentally flailing for anything she might have done wrong.

‘It’s all small things,’ said Fiona, in a reassuring tone, ‘but you know how these small things add up when they’re not taken in isolation but are brought together in the database and begin to form a picture.’

‘What picture?’ Hope’s tone had shifted register, from shock to anger. ‘What database?’

‘ You know,’ Fiona said, with an impatient frown. ‘Your personal profile is automatically updated all the time, from surveillance and from your interactions – purchases, interpersonal connections, interactions with official bodies, social services, health, police…’ She waved a hand and repeated, ‘ You know.’

‘Yes, I know!’ Hope said. ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Look, Hope,’ said Fiona, ‘like I say, it’s all automatic, and it hasn’t rung any warning bells yet, but I’ve been concerned about you, so I’ve been having a look. Which I’m perfectly entitled to do, by the way. And I have to say that it’s getting very close to the tipping point where social services and child protection would be required to take an interest.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Would you think it was so ridiculous if I told you that a lot of the negative situations being flagged up come from the police?’

‘The police?’ Hope heard her voice rise incredulously. ‘I haven’t had any encounters with the police.’

‘Oh yes you have, Hope. That letter you dropped into Jack Crow’s house, that brought you to police attention, even if it only wasted a lot of police time. Then you confronted him three weeks ago, at the May Day rally in the park. He was obliged to report that.’

‘Obliged?’ cried Hope, by now outraged. ‘To report me ?’

Fiona nodded. ‘Yes, obliged. He uploaded the part of your conversation that took place while he had his glasses on. The word “Naxal” came up, I understand, but let’s leave that aside. He found your whole line of argument disturbing. As if you hadn’t joined the Party for any kind of sincere reason. As if you had an ulterior motive.’

‘Damn right I had an ulterior motive,’ said Hope. ‘I was hoping he would help me with this compulsory-fix business. What’s wrong with that? People join parties to advance their interests, including their bloody business interests if North Islington CLP is anything to go by.’

‘Yes, yes, Hope, I can quite see that. But you have to consider what happens when the police intelligence gets hold of something like that. It raises a little flag, you know? And then the intelligence has to cast its net wider, it has to start looking for other traces of you, using face recognition and tags and so on. And then it starts making connections. Joining dots.’

She slipped her computer out of her breast pocket and laid it on the table. ‘Here, let me show you some of the dots they joined. Just put your glasses on.’

Hope did. The devices linked. She saw a dark background spidered with red lines linking her with Maya, with a woman she didn’t know, with Hugh, Nick, Jack Crow, various sites: ParentsNet, SynBioTech, the health centre; phone and street-camera photos of all these people and locations and more… it just went on and on, the viewpoint zooming and swooping through the web, while Fiona’s murmured voice-over kept up a running commentary.

‘You see, it starts with that disturbance outside the nursery, and all of a sudden you’re part of a flash mob initiated by that woman Maya, who has lots of warning flags against her, nothing actionable but still, not good… You go skipping off with her to a dodgy little place, an unlicensed café no less, where you take off your monitor ring, and later it shows cotinine traces, very bad sign, Hope, as you should know. That links up with the alcohol incident, it adds up, you see. Then there’s the two incidents with your MP, both with some vague terrorism connection, questions raised, nothing more, and then it gets really interesting. This woman here, Geena Fernandez, is picked up and questioned about a terrorism-related offence. She’s already connected to you because she’s shown an interest in your case, she works at SynBioTech, the company that makes the fix, she’s a close friend of Maya’s, and – she visited your husband at work yesterday! So…’

Fiona disconnected Hope’s access to her personal profile. The network swirled away, to be replaced by the normal view through the glasses. Hope found the overlay distracting – right now, still tuned to Fiona’s avatar, it was telling her about all the accomplishments on the health visitor’s CV – so she took them off.

‘… that’s it, that’s what the police and social services databases are quietly thinking about you right now. Nothing strong enough yet to alert a human operative, but definitely moving in that direction. I’m sure there are perfectly innocent explanations for every one of these links and nodes, but…’

Fiona let the word hang, like a virtual link.

‘But nothing!’ Hope said. ‘It’s just ridiculous. Terrorism? Come on.’ She fluttered her hands towards herself. ‘Look at me, sitting here in my pinny! A terrorist in a frilly apron!’