Zero

Jeff and Frances intercept Cyn the next morning as she walks into the engine room, feeling a little fatigued.

Together they enter the meeting room that Anthony has designated as both Chander’s office and the operations centre for the hunt for Zero.

‘Good morning,’ Chander greets her with a radiant smile, as if she were the only one in the room. Chander, the man who wouldn’t mind her scar. Gary did.

She hasn’t yet taken off the glasses after her journey on the Tube. She activates Peggy with a whispered command as Chander asks how she is. Her blonde adviser doesn’t appear this time, but her voice keeps feeding the bone behind her ear with tips on posture as well as the odd phrase and cue. She’s turned Peggy’s settings up too high and finds she can’t concentrate on Chander. This is what being schizophrenic must feel like, she thinks.

This is never going to work. In the toilets, she sets Peggy to only give tips with an eighty per cent likelihood of success. When she returns, Chander, Jeff and Frances have gathered in front of a screen.

Peggy speaks to Cyn only occasionally now, and her advice blends almost naturally into her stream of consciousness. She can now devote herself fully to her conversation with Chander, but he’s absorbed in his work.

‘Readers have figured out what program Zero used to animate his videos,’ Chander explains. ‘3DWhizz. Here, you can see an entry from checkmax89. He gives a few examples to back up his analysis.’

Jeff calls the relevant entry up on screen. There’s a string of comments below it. ‘In the continuing discussion, more and more users either challenge or confirm this supposition and give additional examples.’

‘Take Chander’s work seriously!’ Peggy remonstrates inside her head. Wow, she can even analyse semantics! She’s right, of course. He wouldn’t be the first man to run a mile as a result of Cyn’s sarcasm.

‘But surely you’re smart enough to draw a few conclusions?’ she continues, addressing Chander. Sycophant, she thinks as he answers.

‘In combination with Zero’s patterns of speech, for instance, yes. It’s high-level stuff, and they can’t reproduce that quality electronically yet. Someone is speaking these texts and only afterwards are they put through various electronic filters. Which means that the speaker or speakers have a perfect command of English.’

‘We’ll see,’ says Chander. ‘Maybe someone’s hacked into the company and the register of every 3DWhizz client is now floating around the internet somewhere.’

‘Nothing’s turned up yet, though,’ says Jeff, ‘so we’ll most likely have to search for it ourselves. Let’s get to work.’

For the next few hours Cyn concentrates on her article about ManRank and looks at reactions when the initial videos emerged four months ago and how these have changed over time. Whereas the usual critics protested vehemently at first and proclaimed the final decline of Western civilization, the series quickly found a huge number of online followers. She realizes they regarded it as bringing order to a chaotic and incomprehensible world. She still has a few unresolved questions, though, and thinks they could be a wonderful excuse for a conversation with Chander. She consults Peggy.

‘Chander loves talking about the internet and technological innovations, even in his free time,’ Peggy says. Cyn doesn’t see much of a thrill in that just now, but she decides to turn his superior knowledge in this field to her advantage. ‘His other interests at the moment are creative cookery and sport, especially an Indian martial art called kalarippayat.’

Good to know, thinks Cyn, even though the whole appeal of talking to a member of the opposite sex once consisted of finding out precisely those kinds of titbits.

Chander’s sitting in the meeting room. He’s gazing slightly madly into his glasses and intermittently typing on his tablet.

Flashing her one of his fabulous smiles, he invites her to sit down with him. ‘What’s up?’

‘I can’t get one comment from the Zero video out of my head. How can I be sure Google and Co.’s results really show what I’m looking for, and not what the people operating the search engines want to show me? How do I know ActApp recommendations really are in my best interests, and not in the best interests of the ActApp programmers?’

‘There’s a simple answer to that: you can never be sure until you’ve seen the underlying algorithms.’

‘Search engines are always accused of manipulating results,’ Chander explains. ‘That’s why the EU even went as far as threatening Google with a fine running into billions of euros. But the question is more where the manipulation begins.’

‘All software is underpinned by its programmers’ basic assumptions about how the world works. Those assumptions – for example, if the person’s an advocate of non-cooperative or cooperative game theory – feed into the program itself. That means that the program ultimately replicates its author’s world view. If different people with different intentions write the program, then it’ll be a different program, producing different results, however slight. Is that manipulation?’

‘Also, search engines personalize the search,’ Chander says, continuing his lecture. ‘You and I will get completely different results if we each enter Zero or another term into Google. Is that manipulation? What criteria do the programs use to personalize their search?

‘Search engines do sometimes deliberately influence results, though, for example when it comes to pornography or hate crimes. Or if they do business in dictatorships or monarchies in the Gulf. They’ll remove from the index links to insults aimed at potentates or monarchs because they’re forbidden by law. Those are just a few examples. In short, there’s no such thing as a neutral search result, and the same is true of most results and recommendations online. That’s why we talk not about freedom of information, but filtering of information. None of it’s truly neutral. Why would it be? The internet isn’t a new world, it’s simply an addition to our existing one. People use it to trick and cheat, dissimulate, divulge and expose, manipulate and intrigue, worship and ridicule, hate and love, just like anywhere else.’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Just involving far more people and at much greater speeds than before. Making use of a service on the internet is like asking a taxi driver in an unknown city to take you to a good hotel. In the best-case scenario, he does exactly that. In the second best, he takes you to one he thinks is good, although unfortunately his standards aren’t the same as yours. And in most, he takes you to his cousin’s hotel.’ He grins. ‘But what’s your point?’

Peggy encourages Cyn to react to his joke, but she’s too lost in her thoughts to flirt right now. ‘By filtering information all these companies influence our opinions and our actions,’ she observes.

Chander pulls a face. ‘You’re a journalist. Mistrust is an occupational hazard.’

‘A loss of trust isn’t an occupational hazard, it’s our new culture,’ Cyn counters pensively.

‘Of course these companies influence our opinions and our actions, whether they intend to or not. That may even be the key point. Do they want that level of influence? And if so, how do they want to use it? And the next question is: Do users know how they’re likely to be influenced?’

‘What’s that?’ He interrupts her, pointing to a sequence of images playing in a thumbnail preview. New video! it says. ‘Looks like—’

Anthony comes charging into the room with Jeff in hot pursuit. ‘Zero’s posted a new video!’

Jeff has opened the video on full-screen mode. Cyn freezes. She’s grinning out at herself from Zero’s video, explaining: ‘Someone else is hunting me now.’ Her face and voice morph into Anthony’s. ‘Yes, well, I don’t really care. Our friends should really be paying a visit to some totally different people, such as Takisha Washington. Takisha lives in Philadelphia. She’s a mother of two and works at a branch of Barner’s, a regional supermarket chain.’

Zero’s pacing up and down in front of said store, disguised as an overweight man in a Hawaiian shirt. ‘Sadly, Barner’s hasn’t been doing so well in recent years. A few weeks ago they had to “let go” a few people, as the euphemism goes. Twenty per cent of their total staff! So the question for Barner’s was, who should go?’

‘Barner’s has an in-house staff appraisal system which evaluates a range of criteria. Unfortunately it turned out that almost ninety per cent of staff met the criteria.’

As in his earlier videos, Zero’s moving through real-life surroundings, but he appears less and less frequently as his tale progresses. Cyn notices that the video’s taking a different path from previous ones. The footage reminds her of TV reports that reconstruct real-life scenes with a voice-over commentary by the newsreader. Forms, supermarket branches with customers, library footage of staff meetings … Just as labour-intensive as Zero’s usual animations and film montages, but less sensationalist.

‘I’ve got a server,’ whispers Chander without getting up. ‘In Germany. Must be a re-router.’

Cyn focuses on the curvaceous black woman who’s now appeared on screen. She’s wearing a flowery dress and standing in front of a rubbish bin. The caption gives her name as Takisha Washington.

‘I worked in that store for seven years. Barner’s administrative centre was right upstairs from us,’ she explains in a thick American drawl.

‘Who did the interview?’ Anthony asks. He instructs Jeff and Frances to find Takisha Washington as quickly as possible.

‘I’d just come off duty,’ Takisha continues, ‘and I had to throw something in the trash. That’s when I found this list.’ She holds up a bunch of crumpled papers to the camera. ‘Y’all know what this is. Somebody from HR threw the printout in the trash instead of puttin’ it through the shredder. Cain’t have thought nothin’ of it.’

‘A server in Brazil,’ Chander interjects. ‘Zero’s covered his trail – or laid a false one.’

‘I takes a good look at this list and I sees my name on it too. I think, “That’s weird.” Look at this.’ Washington points to the table of names with several long columns of numbers.

‘Takisha Washington. Look, that’s her face. With contact details and all.’

Anthony’s already tapping on his smartphone. Cyn’s having trouble concentrating on the video, but they have to be quick now.

‘I knew they were gonna fire people and I told myself that list could have something to do with it. So to be safe I took it home.’

The video switches back to TV report mode. The film-maker might be able to give them some clues about Zero. They’ve got to talk to Takisha Washington.

‘A few days after they fired me, I got a letter from my credit card company.’ Takisha’s dark fingers with bright-red nails pull a letter from an envelope. ‘They done reduced my coverage to zero. I had to pay off most of my debts right away. Huh? I just lost my job! How was I s’posed to pay my debts? No chance. My credit score went down when I was fired, and I had to pay to keep them from blockin’ my card. What was I gonna do? I had to send my rent money, and me with two kids in school. They daddies don’t pay a goddam cent. So I had to sell my car. Great!’ Now she’s standing in front of a dented car door. A man’s hand counts bills into hers. ‘Next thing I know, my landlord calls. Says he’s worried I ain’t gonna make rent. He right. I took any job I could get. Many I didn’t get because I ain’t got no car no more. My credit card been blocked for a long time, and the credit card company was threatenin’ to sue me.’

‘No way!’ whispers Chander alongside Cyn, and he isn’t talking about Takisha’s story. His fingers are flitting across the touchscreen even faster than before. She’s dying to hear what he’s found, but one of them has to keep track of Takisha’s tale.

‘Two months later my landlord kicked me out. There I was, out on the street with two kids.’ Takisha’s in a street in a run-down American suburb. ‘No job. No credit. No car. No home. Friends took me in, but only for two weeks. I found the list again when I was packin’. I’d totally forgotten about it. I was about to throw it out, but then I got on the bus to my old supermarket and showed the list to one of the women in HR. First she got all red and asked me where did I get it from, and then she said the document wasn’t nothin’. That it belonged to the company and I should give it to her. I said no way. I got a lawyer. He knew what it meant. The columns in the list showed the grades from the different assessment systems Barner’s used – Barner’s Human Resources, the company’s internal evaluation system for its workers, a sub-system called Barner’s Social for social aspects, and then ManRank. The lawyer told me it was some new kind of internet appraisal system. I ain’t never heard of it. He said I had a chance. Not because they’d used ManRank, but because they never told me they was usin’ it. But even if I had a chance, I’d lost everything I goddam owned! D’you know what it’s like bein’ out on the streets? That’s where I ended up because of that shitty list! Can you imagine that shit? I mean, I’ve heard of people losin’ their jobs because they posted something dumb on Facebook, or not gettin’ a loan or a job because of fifteen-year-old notifications of a foreclosure sale of they house on Google. Damn, they so many things you gotta look out for nowadays!’

‘Yeah, so many things,’ repeats Zero, dressed as a sad-faced clown. ‘Fired because of ManRank, Freemee’s public rating agency for people. The first case we’ve ever heard about. This was Zero almost live from Philadelphia. And now for our normal ending.’ Zero waves his arms like a conductor: ‘Another thing: I believe we must destroy the data krakens.’

‘Fuck!’ shouts Carl, his voice almost cracking as he launches into a tirade. ‘This story is going to be all over the headlines, up and down the land! Fucking Miss Washington is going to be telling her story on every goddam prime-time talk show in the nation! The first supporters’ pages are popping up on social media, even on our website! This is a fucking disaster!’

Will lets him rage. He knows there’s no hope of getting through to Carl when he’s in this kind of funk.

‘You’re wrong,’ Alice retorts, unperturbed. ‘The hunt for Zero has hardly even begun, and Zero has already got everybody talking about us.’

‘It does,’ she says, displaying a graph. ‘You can follow here, live, how new memberships ballooned during the report. Not to mention interest from corporate clients.’ She laughs. ‘Customer services are swamped with requests. If we put the right spin on this, public opinion will mainly turn against Barner’s because they didn’t notify their staff.’

Carl nervously arranges a small vase, some pens and a smartphone until they’re in a neat line on the meeting table.

‘You’re probably right,’ he admits. ‘Still, Zero’s come up with a catchy slogan – “the rating agency for people” – which could do us long-term damage.’

‘If you like.’ He tinkers with a pen that to Will’s eyes already looked perfectly parallel to the others.

‘No, that’s the major difference. Zero has done us a huge favour by saying that. It means we can stick to our story: Freemee makes public the things others seek to hide.’

‘That sounds like pointing the finger!’ He has to align another pen. Will feels an overwhelming urge to mess all the items up.

‘Good Lord, we have a hit on our hands! Enjoy it! This story’s a massive scoop! Half the world’s journalists want to know who’s behind Zero, and they’ve joined the hunt. Our idea’s working.’

Will’s glasses signal the arrival of a new message. He skims through it while listening to Carl’s response with half an ear. The next moment, however, he’s lost any interest in what Carl is saying.

‘The Daily’s about to broadcast a live interview with Takisha Washington.’

Will goes to the British newspaper’s home page and switches the stream to the wall monitor.

‘Thank you for your willingness to talk to us, Miss Washington,’ says Anthony, flashing her what he believes to be his most appealing smile. The broadcast hasn’t started yet.

Less than an hour has passed since Zero’s video went online. Takisha Washington is in a different dress from the one she was wearing in the video, although this one is also flowery. She’s positioned herself in front of a good-quality camera and made sure the lighting is decent.

‘We’ll crop the video differently for the recording so only Washington is in shot,’ Anthony orders quietly. He stares anxiously at the screen in front of him. ‘Over a million viewers,’ he whispers. ‘This is amazing!’

They’ve hurriedly set up a makeshift live studio in the engine room. Cyn’s sitting with Anthony and Chander at one table, while Jeff, Frances and Charly are on red alert nearby. All of them are wearing smart glasses. Five cameras are trained on them from a variety of angles. The newsfloor can be seen in the background, complete with editors working at long tables. The giant wall of monitors serves as a backdrop to the whole set-up.

‘Did you find anything?’ Anthony asks Chander, who nods absentmindedly, hunched over his computer.

Cyn takes a sip of water. She’s nervous. Viewers all over the world can see her on their computer screens, mobiles and glasses.

‘OK,’ Anthony says to her, ‘we’re about to go live. Almost live. There’s a ninety-second buffer, just in case there are broadcasting problems or we get mixed up or something else occurs that requires a quick response. So we can be totally relaxed.’

Yeah, I’m really going to be totally relaxed with a million people watching me and absolutely no training, is the thought racing through Cyn’s mind. The footage of Takisha Washington is going to be beamed directly to her glasses. Anthony wants two co-presenters, an arrangement he knows from television news and which is similar to the set-up for their teaser.

Anthony gives the signal and leads in. ‘Miss Washington, welcome to the Daily’s live studio. We’re very grateful for your time. Tell us how you first came into contact with Zero.’

‘So one day this guy calls to interview me,’ answers Takisha Washington in a slightly rasping voice. ‘He asks me to tell him my story and says he wants to post it on his blog and video channel.’

Cyn realizes she’s finding this interview easier than she expected. Her nervousness is diminishing, and she’s fully focused on the interviewee. ‘And then you met him. A man?’

‘Did you check him out before you met up? Take a look at the blog where he was going to post your story, I mean.’

Takisha Washington holds a smartphone up to the camera. Cyn can see a snapshot of a man’s face on the touchscreen. ‘Like this.’

‘Brilliant!’ cries Anthony. ‘You got a photo of him. Can you give us a better view?’

Chander has saved a still and sends it through facial recognition software. They have a ninety-second headstart on the rest of the world.

Identify

Kosak, Alvin

Cincinnati, USA

DOB: 12.10.1964

Height: 5’ 11”

Cyn doesn’t catch the other details because Anthony whispers, ‘You carry on!’

Anthony and Jeff give each other a sign and instruct their glasses to make some calls. Anthony is waving his arms around furiously. Jeff and Frances are also trying to make contact with Alvin Kosak.

She has to focus on her own interview, which is no easy task because she’s desperate to hear what the others have uncovered. Anthony’s having an agitated, half-audible conversation with Charly and a technician.

‘And then you told him your story,’ she continues. Alvin Kosak’s identity will have been published online by now. She doesn’t catch what Washington says next because Anthony murmurs to her, ‘We have two and a half million viewers! And we have Alvin Kosak on the line. He’s willing to join us live!’

‘Improvise,’ Anthony hisses. ‘Tell her we’ve got a surprise for our viewers and that Alvin Kosak is our new live guest.’

She follows his instructions. Takisha Washington doesn’t seem surprised – she’s the phlegmatic type. On her glasses Cyn now has a split-screen with Alvin Kosak appearing next to Takisha. His smartphone camera distorts his face unflatteringly.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Cyn announces, mimicking the TV presenters she’s seen. ‘This is Alvin Kosak, the man who interviewed Takisha Washington under the pseudonym Don Endress. Alvin Kosak, are you Zero?’

Kosak furrows his brow. ‘Me? No, I have nothing to do with Zero. Apart from that he – or should I say they? … anyway, somebody called me … Hi, Miss Washington!’

Chander is typing like crazy on his tablet next to her, while Anthony talks quietly to Takisha Washington and her lawyers.

‘Yeah. We spoke a few times, the last time two days before I spoke to Miss Washington. Zero told me back then that the media would soon be in touch.’

Cyn falters for a second before enquiring, ‘The media? Zero knew the media would call you?’

Cyn peers uncertainly at Anthony. He hunches his shoulders, clueless, and motions for her to carry on.

‘That I should fly to Philadelphia to meet Miss Washington and do the interview. Zero wired me money for the flight and a fee. I also received an email containing an online address where I was to upload the film. And he told me to call myself Don Endress.’

‘I didn’t have anything else to do, and I could sure use the money. Also, he said I’d be famous nationwide and would soon find a job. I didn’t believe that bit, but what did I have to lose?’

She decides to trust her instincts. Kosak isn’t a particularly charismatic interviewee, but something about his story has set her antennae twitching. ‘A new job? So you lost your job too?’

‘Yeah, that’s why Zero contacted me. He must have read my old blog. Probably the only person who did.’

Even as Kosak is talking, Cyn grasps his plan. ‘And he told you we’d ring you?!’

Zero had counted on Kosak being identified by whichever media outlet he planned to send the video to. He probably sent him to Takisha Washington on purpose so they’d find him.

‘He said I should also tell you my story. That way more people were likely to see it.’

Anthony grins and nods appreciatively. He holds up his right hand and splays all five fingers, forming the word ‘millions’ with his lips and opening his eyes wide. Cyn understands. They now have five million viewers. The news is spreading like wildfire. Anthony triumphantly clenches his fist. She casts one final glance at him. Should she continue? He nods.

‘Well, I had this vintage store in Cincinnati. Nice stuff, nothing cheap. I sold only the best brands – Prada, Gucci and the others, all barely worn.’

‘A second-hand store where the well-off could sell their clothes when they needed cash?’ she enquires.

‘No. These people didn’t need cash, they needed space in their closet for items from the next summer or winter collection.’ He scratches his nose. ‘And I prefer the word “vintage”. We weren’t some small-time outfit reeking of dust, unwashed clothes and mothballs, see?’

She does see, even if she can’t even afford designer clothing from a vintage store.

‘Business was good,’ Kosak continues. ‘Very good. We had lots of customers, but then …’ Kosak’s face, with its slightly yellowish tinge and dark circles under his eyes, is now very close to the camera. ‘A year back I noticed customers were staying away. At first I thought, OK, this sometimes happens, but they’ll be back after Thanksgiving. Christmas was always the biggest time of the year for me too. But they didn’t come. My takings slumped. In mid-December I started to panic …’

Cyn is having trouble concentrating on Kosak. She wishes he’d put down his smartphone so the picture didn’t wobble so much, but she doesn’t want to interrupt him now.

‘I had a popular Facebook site for the store and a blog and I tweeted, with several thousand followers and a good amount of interaction. I also had a pretty big database of regular customers and sent out mails every day. But none of that helped. None of it! My takings were down seventy per cent on the previous year. That’s enough to drive any store to its knees. Maybe I’ve got competition somewhere, I thought. I did some advertising and organized some offers. I reduced my prices, but even that didn’t work. Some days I was the only person in the store.’

The picture goes out of focus for a while, then he continues to talk. ‘A week before Christmas I ran into one of my former regular customers in the street. I asked him straight out how he was doing. He beat around the bush, saying he’d moved away and didn’t come back to the neighbourhood very often. I saw other old customers. All of them mentioned various reasons why they hadn’t been in for a while, but they promised to drop in again soon. Nobody came. In the spring I was forced to close. It was all over. My situation since is similar to Miss Washington’s. My credit score fell off a cliff, I had to move into a one-room apartment and who knows how long I’ll be able to afford that. Soon I may have to sleep in my car.’

He sniffles. ‘I thought I must have done something wrong until one night I happened to meet one of my old regular customers in a bar. We got chatting and drinking – the ancient Romans knew all about these things, in vino veritas and all that, even if we were on the beer. Eventually I told him I’d had to shut down the store. I asked him straight out why he’d stayed away. He pussyfooted around for a while, but then he came out with it. He was using this new program called Freemee and he sounded pretty excited about it.’

‘I’d heard about it,’ Kosak continues, as his face is displayed in its full unattractive glory on the monitor wall in Will’s office, ‘but I’d never really taken the trouble to find out more.’

‘He basically told me the program gave him tips about how to improve his lifestyle …’

‘… make more dough, have better luck with women. He sounded as if his goal was to be Mr Universe. He was totally convinced by the whole thing. Sounded more like a cult to me.’

‘A cult!’ Carl gives a sarcastic laugh. ‘We don’t need gurus, slogans or psycho-terror!’ He scrutinizes the line-up on the table and pushes the vase a fraction of an inch to the left. ‘Structures,’ he mumbles. ‘That’s what matters. People only need structures.’

‘In any case, at some point the program advised him not to buy any more second-hand clothes or past collections, as they’d have a negative effect on his results. Other people would think he couldn’t afford the latest collection and needed to save money. His results – like something in a lab. Somehow they’ve replaced what reputation or image used to be. That’s why he didn’t come to my vintage store any longer – because my goods were bad for his results! I wasn’t expecting such a bullshit explanation.’

Kosak’s face turns blurry. ‘Hang on,’ he says, ‘I’ve got to put the device down somewhere. My arm’s about to drop off.’

‘What more has he got to say?’ Carl asks, annoyed. ‘We get the message! Refuse to go along with new technology and you fall flat on your face. Splat! Nobody but yourself to blame.’

The picture has stabilized now, and Kosak continues. ‘Next morning I thought, I’ve got nothing to lose by checking. So I called a few of my old customers, chatted to them, you know, and asked in passing what they thought about Freemee. After a bit of humming and hawing, some of them confessed they’d stopped coming to my store for the same reason as the guy the night before. Because that shitty program had advised them to buy new products rather than vintage clothes! You see? They let themselves be fucking brainwashed!’

‘Just the opposite,’ comments Carl. ‘They finally began to use their brains.’

‘Yeah, they’re crazy!’ Takisha Washington interjects, and the two of them embark on a series of mutual commiserations and curses against modern technology, which Anthony brings to a swift conclusion when he notices the audience figures are falling. They say goodbye to the two of them for the time being and end the broadcast.

‘That was so cool!’ he cheers afterwards. ‘Many a TV show is looking enviously at our ratings right now!’

‘While you were having fun, I was working and analysing Zero’s video,’ says Chander. ‘I don’t know why, but this time they made a crucial mistake.’

‘This shit has got to stop!’ Carl rages. ‘The Daily is screwing everything up, goddammit!’

Will doesn’t try to stop him. He knows the storm will soon blow over. When Carl has vented his anger Will says, ‘It’s no big deal. We’ve got plans for precisely this scenario in our bottom drawer.’

‘I bet there’s nothing but chewing gum in your bottom drawer. The most important things are all on servers!’

‘You’re right,’ Will says to appease him, ‘but there were bound to be reports like this sooner or later. We discussed it, remember.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Carl agrees. ‘But it’s still annoying people don’t understand that all ActApps do is nudge completely normal social processes.’

‘That’s what we’re here for,’ Will reassures him. ‘To explain that to people. To highlight the opportunities they provide. That junk dealer’s business would have gone to the wall anyway, sooner or later, when vintage goes out of fashion again.’

‘There you go. With the right tools he could have both foreseen and avoided bankruptcy. That’s how we’ll sell the story. Look to the future! Exploit your potential! Think long-term! Improve your prospects! At long last you have the tools – with Freemee!’

‘Still, Zero’s done more than enough damage. We should put some specialists on him, not these bunglers!’

‘No,’ Carl counters, arranging the pens around the vase with nimble fingers. ‘Now it’s about finding him.’

‘Just let us get on with our public relations work. Look at the numbers and you’ll see this was just the beginning.’

‘I am looking at the numbers,’ Carl retorts, ‘and they show a mass of imponderables.’

‘That’s the nature of the beast,’ says Will, ‘but probability’s on our side.’

‘Then keep it that way,’ replies Carl before getting up and leaving the room.

He shares the info from his glasses so Cyn and Anthony can see what he’s feeding into the devices. Cyn’s a little disappointed: nothing but tables and series of numbers and letters. Peggy, now reactivated, advises her to give Chander an appreciative smile. Oh, all right then.

‘Every file, such as Zero’s videos for example, contains what is known as metadata,’ he begins. ‘Metadata has advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that you find a variety of information in it, for instance the software used to create a file, the software’s licence code maybe, the date it was created, and so on. The disadvantage is it usually gets lost when the files are converted into different video formats. What’s more, this metadata can be deleted or manipulated, so even if we can find it, we can’t necessarily trust it. I scanned Zero’s videos for metadata right from the outset of our research. It had been systematically deleted. Until today, that is. For whatever reason, Zero appears to have forgotten to do so in the Washington video.’

‘Maybe it was intentional,’ Cyn interjects, ‘and the data has been manipulated.’ You should praise his work first. You can express an opinion afterwards, Peggy rebukes her. Cyn frowns. She’s supposed to play the dumb female?

‘It’s possible,’ Chander admits, ‘but I don’t believe so. The metadata gives a lot away here. First, the software used to create the video. It really is called 3DWhizz – the readers were right – and is produced by the US firm 3D Wonder Vision. Second, I found the licence number under which the software copy Zero used is registered. And third, the metadata also contained the MAC address – a specific ID number for the computer running that copy.’

And where does that leave us? Cyn bites her tongue. With Peggy’s reminder ringing in her ear, she shoots Chander an admiring smile and says, ‘That’s amazing!’

‘And how exactly does that help us?’ she asks, her knees like jelly. Yuck! But Chander seems to take the bait.

‘That, my dear, could well tell us who uses the software copy,’ he explains considerately. ‘And if the data wasn’t manipulated and the computer wasn’t stolen, then it might just be a member of Zero.’

‘I’m still not clear how you can figure out all that from a few figures and numbers.’

Very simple. Yeah, sure. Cyn readies herself for a very simple explanation from an IT specialist, knowing she won’t understand a word.

‘I looked on online forums for any potential weaknesses in 3DWhizz. I found some. Like most software, there’s the occasional spot where it’s shoddily or oddly written. There’s one weakness that might be useful to us, because you have to register the licence number online with the manufacturer before you can use it. And you can only use it on a maximum of two devices after registering.’ Cyn nods. She had to register her printer at home. For free customer support, supposedly. ‘That’s how the manufacturer guards against pirate copies and illegal use. During the registration process, however, its behaviour is somewhat unusual for software of this kind. It checks the user’s local IP address before this goes through any possible re-routers and sends it to 3D Wonder Vision. The company most probably does this to find out more about its users, even if they’re trying to conceal their IP address and origin. So when someone registers their copy of 3DWhizz, the manufacturer knows not only that they’ve done so but also roughly where the user did it. Which means that 3D Wonder Vision knows the IP address to which the software copy Zero uses was registered.’

‘That’s nice for Wonder Vision,’ observes Anthony. ‘But how far does it get us?’

‘A long way if we’re smart enough. We’re going to do a bit of social engineering.’

‘3D Wonder Vision is based in the States,’ Chander explains, smiling at Cyn. ‘I’ll go ahead and call them!’

Chander hooks up Cyn, Jeff and Anthony so they can listen in on the conversation. After only one ring a bland male voice answers and rattles out a formulaic greeting. A call centre somewhere, Cyn thinks. India, judging by the speaker’s accent.

‘Hi,’ Chander responds, every bit as friendly. ‘I’ve got a huge favour to ask. Some time ago I registered to use 3DWhizz. Now I need the invoice for my tax return and I seem to have mislaid it. Could you help me out and send me a copy, please?’

Before the other guy can say a word, Chander continues, ‘You’ll obviously need the licence number of my copy of 3DWhizz,’ then reads out the number he found in the metadata of Zero’s video. ‘My email address has changed since, though,’ he explains and provides an email address he’s just set up, an alphabet soup that provides no clues to a real name.

This can’t be the first time the call-centre worker has been confronted with an invoice request or a change of email address. Without any fuss he cheerfully says, ‘There, I’ve found you. Ah, Mr Tuttle, you’re a loyal user of our software.’

‘And your invoice – it’s on its way. Is there anything else I can do for you?’

Chander checks his inbox. The message with the attached invoice is already there. He scans the document and smiles. ‘No, that’s all, thanks. Have a nice day.’

Cyn is stunned. That was really easy. Social engineering. She expected some technical wizardry when she heard the word ‘engineering’. Not a bit of it. Just trickery and deception: profoundly human techniques. She likes it.

‘What for?’ he answers. ‘Who apart from the software user will know the licence number? It’s like when you have a question about your phone bill and they ask you for your customer reference.’

‘I see! And Zero’s name and address are on the bill!’ Cyn responds excitedly.

‘They’re surely not careless enough to register the software under their real name.’

She runs an eye over the document. ‘Archibald Tuttle,’ she says. ‘Now where have I heard that name before?’

‘From a film,’ Chander says, grinning. ‘Brazil. Tuttle’s a renegade in a surveillance state: a cute in joke.’

While Chander’s still researching the 3D Wonder Vision bill, Cyn, Jeff and the others are swamped with incoming phone calls.

The phone symbol lights up on Cyn’s glasses again. She takes the call. The woman on the other end claims to be from a television channel whose name she doesn’t catch. She sounds hysterical, like a saleswoman on a shopping channel. She’s been following the Daily’s reports and would like to invite Cyn to a talk show in three days’ time. Cyn enquires again after the name of the station.

‘The US broadcaster?’ she asks, nettled. Her glasses now feed her information about the woman on the other end of the line. She really is a producer at the American network – but in New York. ‘I didn’t know you produced talk shows in the UK as well.’

‘We don’t,’ the woman answers, bewildered. ‘I’d like to bring you over to New York.’

Cyn doesn’t ask again; she’s understood. The woman on the other side of the Pond says that the show’s planned topic is ‘Does big data turn us into puppets?’

‘You?’ Anthony pulls a face, squeezes out a smile and says, ‘Great!’ before turning his attention back to his own caller.

The smile dies on Anthony’s lips. ‘Does she know I’m editor-in-chief of the Daily?’

‘If you don’t want to, then I’ll gladly sacrifice myself,’ he answers graciously.

‘No, we want you,’ the woman replies firmly. ‘You handled that interview brilliantly. Your daughter was also part of that live chase for the criminal and there when Adam Denham died. And we need a woman on the panel,’ she adds curtly.

Anthony’s expression darkens for a second before he eventually gives her a double thumbs-up. ‘Well, poppet, you’ve just made your debut in front of five million viewers,’ he hisses at her, ‘and the talk shows are already on the line! You must have done something right. Say yes, of course! It’s brilliant PR for us. Ask who the other guests are.’

A sociology professor, the editor-in-chief of a renowned US daily newspaper and, if possible, Takisha Washington, Alvin Kosak and Freemee’s Vice-President for Marketing and Communications, the producer replies when Cyn puts the question to her.

‘Oh,’ is all Cyn can think to say to this. The guy from Freemee is bound not to pull his punches. For one awful moment she wonders how much he knows about her. Peggy? She holds her head in her hands. Peggy’s a computer program, and you can look into a program. What if the Freemee guy exposes her in front of a large audience? That’s nonsense. He won’t have an eye on every single one of their millions of users, and even if he did, he wouldn’t admit it. After all, Freemee’s trademark is that she alone owns her data, as long as she doesn’t publish it.

All right, mate! Give me a second to think! Unlike you I’ve never been on TV before. If she’s honest, she feels flattered. Even if she’s just appeared in a live stream in front of five million people, she’s still a kid from the TV generation. Television is still a bigger deal than the internet, and she’s been invited to appear on a talk show on one of the major US networks. She’d be lying if she said she hasn’t always secretly dreamed of this. What’s more, she’s never been to New York before.

She deactivates Peggy with two taps of her fingers on the spectacle arms. You can never be too sure, she thinks.

Anthony finishes his conversation and Cyn stops fielding calls. The technicians will have to deal with them on their own for a while.

‘That would be too good to be true,’ Chander replies. ‘No. But there was something almost as valuable as a name on that bill.’

Chander gives her a mischievous look, then says, ‘On the bill was the IP address from which the user registered the 3DWhizz copy.’

‘Not completely, unfortunately. The IP address belongs to a Wi-Fi network provided to their patrons by several cafés on a square in Vienna.’

‘So whoever registered this copy of 3DWhizz was sitting in one of those Viennese cafés as they were doing it?’

‘But when was that? Zero’s been using the software for a long time, right?’

‘That’s why I looked into something. As I said, the metadata in Zero’s video not only gave away the software and the licence number, but also the MAC address of the computer from which the video was uploaded to the internet.’

‘The Wi-Fi networks in cafés are generally not very secure, and I was able to hack into the Viennese network in question relatively easily. Once inside, I only had to search the logs, i.e. the protocols. In them, for example, I found details of the MAC addresses of the devices that log on to the internet via this Wi-Fi network, when they do it and so on. You have three guesses at what I came across there.’

‘The device to which the 3DWhizz copy was registered at the time,’ Cyn infers.

‘Exactly!’ He beams at Cyn. ‘Regularly, too. This computer logs in to the Wi-Fi network every few days. The owner’s a regular. It fits too. There are lots of data privacy activists in Germany and Austria, so it’s not unlikely that Zero members live there.’

‘Of course it can,’ replies Chander. ‘We’ll put a search program on it right away.’

‘It’s possible. MAC addresses can be manipulated. But I think it’s pretty unlikely. The peculiar programming of the 3DWhizz registration process has been publicized in insider circles, but the news didn’t cause much of a stir. After those articles 3D Wonder Vision took half a year to repair the bug. Both of those things happened after the licence in question was registered, meaning that the user didn’t know about the error at the time. And if he’s a film student or a designer and not a programmer, he still might not know.’

‘But they’re only human too and make the odd mistake, like today with the licence number. Or else they think they’re out of reach.’

‘That’s three days away,’ Anthony argues. ‘But if need be, Chander and I will take care of Vienna without you.’

‘I want to come too,’ she says hastily. A trip to Vienna with Chander? She can’t pass up this opportunity! ‘You need me as your co-presenter.’

‘Fine. We’ll make a quick video announcing that we’re on Zero’s scent. Quick and dirty!’ Anthony rubs his hands with glee.

‘No,’ says Anthony. ‘We’re not going to share this information with the public for the moment. We’ll just mention that we’re on to something. We’ve got to create some suspense.’

‘I’d drop the video idea,’ says Chander. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie. We’re going to need a lot of luck as it is. A few whizz-kids among our crowd of contributors will discover the metadata soon enough, and probably the bug in 3DWhizz too. The only question is whether they’ll get to the IP address like we did. At some stage a program in 3DWhizz is going to raise the alarm when it receives too many enquiries. But if people discuss it in the Daily’s Zero forum, Zero might get wind of a weak spot. And the moment he does, he’ll avoid that Wi-Fi network in Vienna like the plague.’

‘When do we leave?’ asks Cyn. Chander gives her a quick glance, and she feels herself blush.

‘First plane we can get on tomorrow morning,’ says Anthony, checking his smartphone. ‘I’ll get someone to book the tickets straightaway. We’ll meet at Heathrow at nine.’

‘Interesting,’ Luís says to Marten. ‘Only a few minutes ago a caller asked for the bill for the initial registration. A service agent sent it to them.’

‘A hidden email address. I can’t figure out who’s behind it or who called. He sent his call via several anonymization services.’

‘So someone else has found the metadata and fooled 3D Wonder Vision’s customer service.’

‘We’ll ask Interpol to cooperate. The Austrian police have to find this person.’

‘What are the waterfalls up to?’ Marten asks, only half in jest. They still don’t have any better leads.

‘There are three hundred and seventy-four in all,’ says Luís, scrolling through the never-ending pictures of flowing water on his monitor. ‘We can identify three hundred and twelve of them – at least, the site’s community of visitors has, as well as putting up new ones all the time. They puzzle over the unknown ones. It’s kind of a game on the website.’

He switches to a text document with, alongside it, a world map covered with red dots, most of which are clustered in cities. ‘Most of the site’s visitors don’t anonymize: their IP addresses can be tracked and attributed. Only about five per cent go through anonymous networks like TOR or VPN. Our buddies at the NSA were even able to find some of those going through TOR, but their software hasn’t detected any suspicious behaviour so far. Around one per cent came or come via VPN providers, and those are the ones we’re working on. Two of the providers are based in the US. We’ve applied for FISA orders and National Security Letters to send to their operators. Once those are approved, they’ll have to hand over the data, which may contain some clues.’

‘OK,’ says Marten. He thinks for a second and sighs. ‘And our friends in Langley should send someone to Vienna too.’

Eddie stares at the screen, exhausted, his features drawn. He’s checked the script again and again. His approach. His interpretations. He can’t spot a single error. In the meantime, his search program has produced further results. They’re similar to the ones yesterday. He therefore faces an immediate and essential question: does Freemee know about this problem? Maybe he should get in touch with them. He clicks on the company’s contact page, but another thought immediately occurs to him. Who, if not them, is best placed to detect irregularities like these? Another fact sets Eddie’s pulse racing. Supposedly out of respect for the deceased, Freemee is blocking the very data – and only this data – that would allow anyone who knows what they’re doing to draw the same conclusions as Eddie has. Another thought rattles him. He could only find data for a small proportion of Freemee users, so he can’t rule out the fact that this scenario might be on an altogether larger scale. The consequences would be terrifying!

Eddie tries to keep a cool head. However, he believes ever more fervently that Freemee is covering up a gigantic scandal. A terrible secret! I watch too much stuff about conspiracy theories. There must be a completely different explanation.

He doesn’t know what to do with the results. He could tell Vi – after all, it was her complaints about her mother’s nagging that put him on to this investigation in the first place. But he knows his IT stories don’t impress Vi; they bore her.

As a journalist Cyn should be interested in them. The question is whether she’d understand what’s involved. She’s as ignorant of the most important cultural technology of the modern age as ninety-nine per cent of the population.

Or he could simply publish his findings and open them up for debate, either on his Freemee profile, which would be particularly cheeky, or on the other platforms he frequents. He feels too unsure of his facts for that, though. He’d rather discuss the numbers with a few experts first and ask them to verify them. He doesn’t fancy embarrassing himself, or being sued for libel by Freemee and plunged into life-long bankruptcy.

His first step is to draft a short presentation. He can decide who to show it to later.

No one in the meeting room notices that Joaquim’s eyes are trained not on the large monitor at the front, but on the secure phone directly under his nose, which he uses to send a message made up entirely of short numerical code. The man who receives it knows exactly what the message means. Joaquim turns his attention back to the speaker beside the monitor.

Thursday