Page 18 of Coldwire
“Here.” There’s an incoming transmission, and I flick my eyes, accepting Headmaster Murray’s file download. A news article.
“Their lead engineer is someone named Chung Yin. You know him.”
For a moment, I assume Headmaster Murray is making a barb. Ethnic Medans are used to the insinuations that we’ll turn spy eventually, especially at a place like Nile Military Academy. Many of us end up assigned in Medaluo for NileCorp’s intelligence collection because we’re Atahuan assets who blend nicely undercover… up until the moment Medaluo discovers our presence and offers us enough money to turn. Some politicians say it’s in our blood. Some want us all rounded up and kicked out of the country before we can destroy it.
Then I look at the picture attached to the article and realize Idoknow him.
“You were young when he was in Atahua, so maybe you don’t recall anymore,” Headmaster Murray goes on.
“No, I remember him,” I say faintly. Before boarding at the academy, I lived with Dad at the apartment in Melnova. He was one of Dad’s friends, coming by every few weeks to get a drink and chat on the balcony while I was doing my elementary school homework. Dad had me call him Uncle Chung. When I was eleven, I realized I hadn’t seen Uncle Chung in a while,and when I asked Dad why, Dad said it was because he had taken a job elsewhere and moved.
“Chung Yin was born Atahuan,” Headmaster Murray says, “but he chose to revoke his citizenship when Medaluo offered him a job.”
My head snaps up. I feel like I’ve been shocked by a strike of lightning, frozen to the floor. We hear the accusations. We hardly hear of it actually happening.
“I didn’t know,” I say. “My dad never told me.”
“I imagine Henry didn’t know the extent of it. We only very recently received word about what Mr. Chung has been doing with Medaluo all these years, and it turns out it’s secretly building a hacking bot.”
Every month, the International Assembly raises protests against NileCorp—and Atahua, peripherally—about the limited control that countries have over their own servers. NileCorp might give Medans the ability to make their avatars prettier, but they can’t change anything about their streets, their maps. StrangeLoom’s settings are immutable. It builds everything upcountry off its downcountry satellites, and NileCorp doesn’t release anything for a country’s own engineers to play with. It establishes the power balance upcountry firmly. NileCorp is Atahua’s watchdog, and so Atahua is the global king.
Hacking StrangeLoom would mean Medaluo quietly meddling with every bit of society without us knowing what exactly it’s hitting. People’s messages. Bank accounts. Inventory objects. Our very sense of reality. Medaluo would be inserting puppet strings into Atahua’s throne.
There’s another incoming file from Headmaster Murray. I open it, finding myself looking at a satellite scan of a compound.
“You’re aware of the function of national data centers, yes?” he asks.
I would hope so. “As in, the giant server rooms where the government stores its data?”
“Correct.”
“I’m familiar with the concept.”
He nods. “What you’re currently looking at can also be found on page fourteen of your brief. Medaluo has been building Coldwire directly inside its data centers. It ensures the highest level of protection if there aren’t any second access points—no external offices to break into, no remote locations to hack. On his official resume, Chung Yin has been made supervisor of the Ministry of National Defense’s servers. He’s actually the lead engineer who steers Operation Coldwire using those data centers as office spaces.”
I flip back to the previous file transmission, scanning the news article again. In the picture, Chung is significantly older than I remember. The years haven’t been kind to him downcountry. Scientists and engineers are some of the few people who end up in the real often as an occupational hazard. Tests still have to be run. Servers have to be updated.
His hair is graying in streaks on both sides. He’s dressed in a button-down that seems a size too big for him, but the white lab coat mostly hides the baggy fabric. A pair of glasses hang on a chain around his neck—old glasses, the sort for myopia, not the ones that people wear downcountry to replace their handhelds.
“And now it would appear Mr. Chung has gone missing.”
My head jerks up, minimizing everything in my display. “What?”
“The servers show he isn’t logged upcountry anymore,” Headmaster Murray goes on. “The Pod in his home is empty, and the cameras lost sight of him after he left work that day.”
I’m blinking rapidly. There’s certainly foul play here. People don’tgo missinganymore. Facial recognition will identify them in an instant, even if only a snippet of their forehead flashes at a security camera.
“Under usual circumstances, we might assume he’s checked into a spa retreat somewhere to enjoy some time off. However, Operation Coldwire then disappeared from Medaluo’s data centers. Hard to argue that isn’t suspicious.”
But a file the size of an AI program can’t be deleted that easily. There are always methods of reversing the wipe.
“Is that the assignment, then?” I ask. “Recover the file?”
Headmaster Murray gives me a dull look. “Of course not. That would take an enormous amount of data sifting. Lia, we want you to find Chung. Read the brief. There are two possible objectives: either confirm he is dead and no longer a threat to our way of life, or locate him so we can move in and turn his loyalty. The most likely explanation for a voluntary disappearance is that he has upset Medaluo. Ripe ground to bring him back to Atahua.”
I finally flip through the folder properly, past the redacted introductory page. A sinking feeling has started in my chest. This is what I am being evaluated on. The most important exam of my life, and it’s to use my personal connection to some friend of my dad I haven’t seen in almost a decade. An engineer who probably doesn’t even remember me and likely has no interest in coming back to a country he gave up.
“Chung disappeared from Upsie, so you’ll start there. He did have offices across the major cities, which means you may need to travel for a comprehensive search.” The second page of my brief saysMedaluo: A Geographic Survey.“We have resources we’re receiving live updates from. You’ll be given more information by a contact on the ground. Be ready to act and move at a moment’s notice.”
