Charles Stross - Rule 34

Kemal is rapt, listening intently. He nods, perhaps once every ten seconds. MacDonald has got him on a string with this spiel. You look back at MacDonald. “You wouldn’t dream of doing that,” you say.

MacDonald grins and nods. “Indeed not. Morality aside, it’s stupid small-scale shit. What’d be the point?”

You peg him then. He’s not your typical aspie hacker, and he’s not a regular impulse-control case. MacDonald’s the other, rare kind: the sort of potential offender who does a cold-blooded risk-benefit calculation and refrains from action not because it’s wrong, but because the trade-off isn’t right. You won’t be seeing him in the daily arrest log anytime soon, because he kens well the opportunity cost of a decade in prison: It’d take a bottom line denominated in millions to lure him off the straight and narrow. But if he sees such a pay-off…

“What do you use ATHENA for?” you ask, bluntly.

“Right now we’re tracing spammers. ATHENA can scope out the fake networks: It can also tell us who’s running them.” There’s something about MacDonald’s body language that puts you on red alert. Something evasive. “ATHENA then probes the spammers to determine whether they’re human or sock-puppet. We’re working on active countermeasures, but that’s not green-lit yet; I gather there’s a working group talking to some staff at the Ministry of Justice about it, but—”

“What kind of active countermeasures?”

“Spoiler stuff, but more active than usual: using their own tools against them. You know it’s an international problem? Crossing lines of jurisdiction—a lot of them live in countries that aren’t signatory to or don’t enforce anti-netcrime treaties. So we’re examining a number of tactics that’d need to be approved by a court order before we could use them. So far it’s just theoretical, but: reverse-phishing the spammers to grab their control channels and shut down the botnets. Fucking with their phishing payloads to make them expose their real identity so you folks can arrest them. Stealing their banking credentials and applying civil-forfeiture protocols. Using their ID protocols to fuck with their personal lives—hate mail to the mother-in-law, that kind of thing. Having their computer report itself as stolen. In an extreme instance, ask the USAF to send a drone to zap them.”

“Uh-huh.” You glance down and try to look as if you’re making notes, so that he can’t see your face. One by one, the alarm bells are going off inside your head. “But you haven’t done any of this yet.”

“No.”

“But?”

“ATHENA is an international effort.” MacDonald leans forward on his elbows, fingers laced before him. “ We are just academic researchers. We’re trying to find a way to, shall we say, enforce communal standards without turning the corner and ending up with a panopticon singularity, ubiquitous maximal law enforcement by software— nobody wants that, so we’re looking for something more humane. Crime prevention by automated social pressure rather than crime prosecution by AI. But… once you get into that territory? People don’t all agree on what constitutes crime, or moral behaviour. Some of our associate members live in jurisdictions where there are melted stove-pipes between academia and government, or intelligence. And I canna vouch for what those third parties might do with our work.”

As soon as you open the front door, you know something’s not right.

“Honey? I’m home…”

It’s like that inevitable, deterministic scene in every horror video you’ve ever lost two hours of your life to: the dawning sense of wrongness, of a life unhinged. From the subtle absence of expected sounds to the different, unwelcome noise from upstairs in the bedroom, all is out of order.

“Hello?” you call up the stairwell.

There’s no reply, but you hear footsteps like a herd of baby elephants on the landing. Angry footsteps. Your stomach clenches. They are Bibi’s angry footsteps, and now you know what is wrong: All that remains is to find out why .

You tiptoe past an obstruction in the hall and look up the stairs. “Is everything alright?” you call.

There’s a muffled thud, a wail of pain, and some most unladylike swearing. Then there’s another thud, louder. Bibi hauls into view on the landing, leaning to one side, the big yellow suitcase dragging at the ends of her arms like a boat anchor. Her glare of effort silences you as she levers it onto the top stair-tread. It must be full, to be so heavy. The suitcase is a hundred-litre monster, sized for that month-long family excursion to Lahore that never came. Ever since, it has lurked under Naseem’s bed like a bright plastic chrysalis from which someday a holiday will hatch. It’s nearly bigger than Bibi, and for a heart-stopping moment, you think she’s going to be crushed by it. But no: It rocks heavily on the stair, then she’s behind it, gripping it by the tow handle and leaning backwards as she lowers it towards you like a juggernaut of wrath. Finally, it hits the hall carpet and sits there, and Bibi pushes it past you, breathing heavily.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“What does it look as if I’m doing?” There’s an odd, lilting note in her voice, almost devil-may-care.

“Is it your mother?”

“No, Anwar, it’s you.”

“I don’t—” You’re about to say understand , but for a cursed moment your tongue freezes. “Where are the children?”

She pushes the heavy bag past you, forcing you to step back against the wall. She’s on the other side of it, using it as a shield. “What’s in the bucket?” she asks tensely. “Where did you get that suitcase?”

She’s been up the ladder.

Oh shit.

“I, I can explain! It’s work—a man from head office, from the Foreign Office, he is coming to stay, just for a couple of nights—”

“Shut up, Anwar.”

You focus on her nostrils, on the tip of her nose. They’re flared wide, as if she smells something awful, something vile. She’s shaking slightly. Fear? Anger? You’ve always found it hard to read Bibi. The long silences, the elliptical comments, the woman’s expectation of insight, as if you’re expected to read and parse the invisible code written on the inside of her eyelids. Contempt?

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“I’m leaving,” she says, as calmly as if announcing she was going to work.

“What?”

While you stand, perplexed, back up against the wall, she shoves the suitcase past you to stand beside the smaller bag that obstructs the hallway.

“When are you coming back?” you ask, feeling lost.

She grabs the smaller bag by the handle. “That’s up to you.” She drags it up to the open front door, then stops, straightens up, and glares at you. “Get rid of that stuff. Get help. Then you can email me.”

“But what—what stuff?” None of this makes sense. “I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t.” Her contempt is withering. “I’ve put up with a lot of not understanding from you, over the years. Not understanding what it is about obeying the law, Anwar. Not understanding that you’re going to get caught if you carry on. And I’ve been giving you a lot of not understanding in return. Not understanding about the pubs and the late nights. Not understanding about your boy-friends and the condoms. I could even manage to not understand your brewing experiment in the attic, or the dodgy business deals. But the other thing? I can’t not understand that . Promise me you’ll get help, and we can talk. Chat. IM. I won’t tell the police.” Her shoulders are shaking. “But. If I catch you near the kids, I’ll tell everyone.” She turns away.