Turing's Delirium (15 page)

Up until now, he has agreed with all of Phiber's plans. He owes him: Phiber has fed and housed him during a difficult time. But he feels ever more distant from him. Phiber's only objective seems to be monetary. Kandinsky is drawn to fooling the security systems of large corporations and the government, but he does not think that the end should be solely financial. He wants to do something else with his life, but the question remains: what?

 

The name of the company is FireWall. They have rented office space on the seventh floor of the Twenty-First-Century Towers. Their logo is at the entrance: a hand shielding a computer from a large blaze. Kandinsky and Phiber offer their services to the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Not many are interested. In some cases the excuse is the recession; in most other cases the reason is that few companies in Bolivia have realized the importance of having a secure computer network. A company's bank account numbers, its commercial strategies, the information on its sales plans, its profits and losses: all of it is on hard disk drives protected by passwords that an average hacker could easily crack.

Kandinsky is disheartened. At one time he thought that this might be a legal job he could like. Phiber Outkast asks him not to forget the goals they have set. This is only a façade.

"What goals?" Kandinsky asks. "To get rich?"

"Having cash will give us the freedom to do whatever we want."

Phiber tries to calm him down; it is not in his best interests to lose Kandinsky now. Kandinsky washes his hands of the whole affair and goes to an Internet café to play online games. At the entrance is a sign announcing the imminent arrival of Global Playground in Bolivia (
Live a parallel life for a modest monthly sum!).
Kandinsky wonders what the hell that might be.

All the while, Kandinsky entertains himself by studying the bodies of Phiber Outkast's sisters. Laura is fifteen and has brown hair that falls over her forehead; her breasts are round and firm. Daniela is fourteen and has blond hair cut very short; her long legs and agility have made her a fearsome beach volleyball player. Gisela, her twin sister, has black hair with bangs cut by epileptic scissors; she discovered makeup a few months ago and plasters her eyelids as if it were her patriotic duty to do so. The family is from Sucre and the three girls spend summer vacations there, where they are known as "the grapes of Sucre" because of their different hair colors. Kandinsky does not like speaking to them; they are haughty, and he is afraid of rejection. And so he imagines: Laura thinks that kissing means using her tongue as if it were a snake on the attack and exchanging saliva by the gallon; Daniela strokes Kandinsky's member, laughing mischievously, like a little girl carrying out some naughty plan that she has been hatching for a long while; Gisela lets him touch her in exchange for a blood friendship pact at sunset.

 

Kandinsky buys the latest Nokia, silver keys on a shiny black background. One afternoon he approaches his parents' house and watches from the sidewalk outside. His dad is on the patio, fixing a bicycle.

Kandinsky approaches with determined steps and, before his dad can process what has happened, hands him an envelope of money and disappears.

Walking back to Phiber Outkast's house, he finds himself looking at the jagged mountains on the horizon, the diffuse violet light of sunset. He is searching for a cause that will allow him to better himself, one that will allow him to transcend. In 1999, his attention had been held by the enormous protests by anti-globalization groups against the WTO in Seattle. Young people from the West were protesting against the new world order in which capitalism was the only option. If there was discontent in industrialized nations, the situation was even worse in Latin America. The recession had taken hold of the country. Montenegro continued to privatize companies that were strategic for national development; he had announced, for example, the bid for the power company in Río Fugitivo. Bolivia had followed the neoliberal model for about fifteen years and had done nothing other than make the economic inequality more pronounced. A straight line connected the closing of the mines and his dad's forced relocation with the protests against globalization.

Perhaps that is the cause he is looking for.

He feels bad for having bought the Nokia and throws it in the garbage.

When he arrives and goes into the room he shares with Phiber, he realizes how stupid that was. Despite the fact that the computers sitting on the desk were assembled locally, were they not also a product of the same corporations he wanted to fight?

He needs to act intelligently, to beat the enemy at its own game. After all, wasn't that the message of someone like Subcommander Marcos? The Zapatistas have a Web site and disseminate their proclamations via the Internet. Their flexibility at adapting the enemy's weapons allows them to thrive.

Being a purist will lead him only to a monastery, and that is not the path he wants to take. Two hours later, he returns in search of the Nokia. He finds it.

 

Kandinsky meets women in the recently inaugurated Playground. It is a fascinating virtual world: not a medieval fantasy but a modern city, like the one he knows, though slightly futuristic and decadent. Armed with some of his avatars, he walks through its virtual streets. He hates the Boulevard because of the excessive advertising on its neon signs: Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger. He prefers the dangerous neighborhoods, because he knows that there he will find women who are more open to adventure. There is never a shortage, even though the women who attract him most do not live in Río Fugitivo. They surreptitiously agree to meet later in cafés or bars, using already-established codes because the rules of Playground prohibit mentioning the real world. Sometimes the meeting is disappointing: the avatar with knee-high boots and a suggestive miniskirt belongs to an overweight secretary or an overly madeup gay who exhales cigarette smoke in his face. At times the avatar is similar to reality and there is a second date and, if he's lucky, a few hours in a motel. Within a few days, Kandinsky grows tired of the women and again takes up the chase in Playground.

One night he meets an avatar named Iris. Somewhat androgynous, with military boots and a square jaw. He invites her to have a drink in a bar on the Boulevard. She accepts, on the condition that she pay her own way. She does not want to owe anyone anything.
A guy can't even be gallant with virtual women
, Kandinsky thinks. He wants to say this to her but doesn't, because he knows he would be committing an offense.

At the Electric Sheep, after Iris introduces herself, an exchange comes out of nowhere:

 

IRIS
: globalization is the cancer thats eating away @ the world even Playground is a symptom of this cancer the new opiate of the masses a virtual screen where people amuse themselves w/o realizing its all a setup by big corporations we have 2 get away from this go live in a cyberstate

KANDINSKY
: we have 2 create a lot of seattles

IRIS
: thats not the answer the empire allows protests in order 2 have more control

KANDINSKY
: if u dont like Playground then y do u come here

IRIS
: scouting trip its always good 2 know enemy terrain

 

The conversation comes to an end: the Playground police appear, read Iris her rights, and suspend her for ten days. Iris disappears from the screen as she screams about the need for isolation.

Kandinsky thinks about what she said. It struck a chord deep inside him.

He runs into Iris again ten days later. They agree to meet outside of Playground, in a private chatroom on the Internet.

 

KANDINSKY
: thx 4 coming back i thought a lot about what u said

IRIS
: i dont go often i cant stand Playground ads everywhere

KANDINSKY
: thats the way it is on the net

IRIS
: not everywhere that wasnt the original idea y it was created there r pirate Utopian cyberstates temporal autonomous worlds

KANDINSKY
: pirate Utopian

IRIS
: like the privateers from the 18
^th
C a series of remote islands where ships restocked n loot was bartered 4 provisions n other things communities that live outside the law outside the state even 4 a short while islands on the net

KANDINSKY
: these days its not possible 2 live outside the law outside the state

IRIS
: in cyberspace it is thx 2 encryption programs like public-key cryptography PGP anonymous email there r autonomous political communities defining a space where the nation-state cant reach w/ its laws thats cryptoanarchy i live in 1 u should visit fredonia

KANDINSKY
: law will arrive sooner or later

IRIS
: in these pirate Utopias there r virtual laws virtual judges virtual punishments institutions that respect the moral autonomy of the individual theyre just egalitarian not like institutions in the real world whats important is that they exist even 4 a short time then reappear in another place on the net autonomous temporal worlds no permanent government structures thats what we want

KANDINSKY
: u dont get anywhere w/ anarchy

IRIS:
anarchy isnt about blowing up banks or stores its not ignoring authority its asking that authority b able to justify its authority if it cant then it should disappear its about giving more responsibility back 2 the individual thx 2 new technologies its possible 2 undermine the power of the nation-state remember the net we need 2 go back 2 it take control of virtual space the way is cryptoanarchy

 

Kandinsky will visit Fredonia, and the social organization of this MOO will excite him. (MOO is an object-oriented MUD: participants in MOOs have more freedom to create and modify the virtual universe as they go.) He will discover that there are over 350 MOOs on the Web, each one with different forms of government and social organization. He will live in Fredonia for a month and a half. He will not meet Iris in person, but during that time he will fall in love with her; they will share a virtual home and will even, in the ecstasy of passion, talk about having a family.

One morning he will wake up saying to himself that it has all been a magnificent dream but a dream after all. He will say good-bye to Iris and thank her for having shown him the way. Now he too has a pirate utopia. It was true, people had to take back what belonged to them; Playground had to be attacked until it came to its knees; people had to reclaim virtual space, and not only that but real space as well. There was a government, there were corporations to fight against. It was no use hiding on an island on the Internet.

One Sunday, Laura will take him by surprise in the bathroom. After a quivering encounter—the sound of pigeons on the roof—she will slip out of his arms and disappear in silence.

A little while later, his skin still tingling with excitement, Kandinsky will go back into the Citibank site. This time he won't steal credit card numbers; he will destroy the homepage and replace it with a photo of Karl Marx and graffiti proclaiming the need for resistance.

It is the birth of Kandinsky's cyberhacktivism.

Y
OU HURRY INTO
the Black Chamber, the building silhouetted against the immense, brusque night like a lighthouse in high seas. The ritual of the ID card in the slot. The police officers at the entrance barely acknowledge you this time, a slight nod of the head, their faces tense, or perhaps they are tired, trying not to yawn. It has been a long night, and there are still a few hours left to go.

Outside darkness reigns, but inside the building you are bathed in white light, intrusive in its intensity. You walk down the hallways as so often before, anxious, excited, when you knew that destinies depended on you, when with a snap of your fingers you could abolish chance. Counting silently, reviewing the frequencies of letters in any phrase that "came to mind—
a cat hidden with its tail sticking out is more hidden than a tail with a cat sticking out—
you would head to the Decoding Room, where Albert, a cigarette between his lips under a
NO SMOKING
sign, his unbrushed hair on end, would be waiting with the file of intransigent messages for you to attempt to break.
Un-sol-va-bles,
he would say, exaggerating the pronunciation, giving each syllable a breath of independence.
Can you?
Opening the crypt to find someone alive inside, heart beating, breathing labored.
Un-sol-va-bles.
You were the first to try, or at times the last, when all the other cryptanalysts in the building had thrown their hands in the air. Albert trusted you, and his question was rhetorical: he knew you could. You would take the file without looking him in the eye—such waste in the exchange of messages—and would already be pondering the solution, even before facing the problem. Clearing away the undergrowth, leaving a clean slate for your mental algorithms, as if your life depended on each attempt. Ah, stubborn intellect constantly trying to outdo itself!

But you do not head to the Decoding Room now. You have not headed there for a long time, ever since Ramírez-Graham arrived. It hurts when you recall the day you did and were denied entrance. You no longer belonged to the inner circle. You returned to your office, only to find that it was not yours anymore. Your books and files, photos of Ruth and Flavia, as well as a clock that had stopped working long ago, all lay in a cardboard box. You had been reassigned; you were now head of the archives. A promotion, they said, congratulations, but you felt as if it were a demotion. Otherwise, why the closed door? The metaphor became literal the first time you descended to your new office, in the basement.