No Life to Lose

Secrets: Chapter 21.2

"No, I do not. That is one of the reasons your assistance can be of help to me. I am watched and occasionally followed. My registered phones are monitored, so I must use disposables, but even that is suspicious in quantity. My actions are limited."

Just how did he know he was being followed and that his phones were tapped? Was he serious or just paranoid?

"You said you've found nothing, same as I have. Then why're you so sure there's anything to be found? I've heard the rumors, I've read the net message boards and all their blasted theories until it makes my bloody eyes fall out. It's all smoke, mirrors and stark raving bullshit. I've half a mind to give it up and go home. Tell me why I shouldn't."

"You have given three years of your life to this cause, have you not?"

"Three bloody long years I'll never get back, too right."

"Yet in truth, what is there to go back to?"

August didn't answer. There was nothing for her to say.

"Yes, I believe there is something to find. Yes, I believe it can be found. Nothing can be hidden perfectly and forever, not even by them. Yet if I am wrong, what will you lose by cooperating for a time? Be it a year, a month, a week. I have no power over you. Will you aid me?"

Indeed, a person with nothing had nothing to fear. "Show me your face," August said, "and tell me who you are, and why you're on to this. Seems you know my whole damned life story, and I'll not have any alliances where the only one in the dark is me."

"If that is the condition of our agreement."

"Bloody right it is."

The final act of the movie was coming to a close. The last chase scene was over, the loose ends just wrapping up. In the lull, the man fell silent for several long minutes. When the ending music blared and the credits rolled, he spoke once more.

"My name is Imran Muhammad, and I am 'on to this' because my country and way of life was brought down by outside interference in our political system. A modern sort of coup. Perhaps you read about it." He handed August a folded sheet of newsprint. "And if you wish to see my face, then do so."

August turned, and her mouth fell open in astonishment.

And he said, "Let me tell you what I believe we must do."

***

As soon as August returned to her apartment, she sat on her couch to read the newsprint she had been given. It was dated April 17, 2018—over three years ago—and the headline read: Iranian government falls!

Below was a picture: a street filled with rioters smashing windows and throwing improvised weapons at outnumbered army regulars. There were police, but they were on the side of the insurgents, helping to push back the army.

There had been rumors on many websites and message boards in those days, suggesting the Iranian coup was not a natural occurrence. Iran was no stranger to political instability, but the way unrest had spread like wildfire from many discrete sources was too precise and engineered in the minds of conspiracy theorists.

No respectable news outlet reported on the suspicions, unsupported as they were. But that very lack of evidence in the face of strange circumstance followed the same pattern as another incident that, for August, hit much closer to home.

In mid-2018, scandal rocked all of Australia's major financial institutions simultaneously. Banks failed. Hundreds of billions of dollars went missing—an unheard of sum for a country with a GDP of not even two trillion USD—and somehow the money couldn't be tracked. That triggered a massive panic sell-off that collapsed the market under its own weight. The country managed to stay afloat, barely, thanks to support from the International Monetary Fund and an American-backed bailout. Every paper, financial magazine and website reported that the crisis had been unforeseeable and inexplicable.

There was one thing that every crackpot theorist, internet message board lurker and coffee shop radical agreed upon regarding Iran and Australia's nearly simultaneous crises: somehow, UCC was involved. Beyond that, all bets were off.

Theories ran the gamut from merely foolish to indescribably ludicrous. Donald Marsh was the president of a secret society trying to overthrow all world governments; Donald Marsh was under contract to Russian arms dealers, sowing conflict in the world for profit; Donald Marsh was never born, and "Donald Marsh" was a false identity created by an escaped terrorist and genius programmer who had done time in Guantanamo Bay; UCC was a front corporation for the CIA to conduct mind-control experiments using Shattered Land players as test subjects.

No one cared to explain the genesis of these theories or exactly how they were connected to Iran and Australia. But there was one inarguable fact: since Donald C. Marsh joined UCC and took over the development of Shattered Land, the game had advanced so quickly and so far that it was nothing short of miraculous. UCC's shareholders and competitors alike were left scratching their heads, wondering if it was genius or witchcraft. And at the same time, untraceable international incidents of incredible scale began to take place on a clockwork schedule.

If anyone could be causing those incidents—so the story went—it would be the creator of a game more real than real; a game that could read your mind and tell you what you were thinking, even when you didn't know yourself.

Four months after the Iranian incident, two months after Australia's financial collapse, August Evans received a job offer from UCC. The company was recruiting globally in preparation for the Asian expansion of its flagship game. They wanted August so desperately that they offered to allow her to work from home on the Australian localization.

Based on a hunch and too many late nights spent reading internet conspiracy theories, John Ward—then an ambitious assistant to the deputy director of the ASIS—acted on what he saw as a singular opportunity. He advised his girlfriend, August Evans, to accept the job offer with UCC, and to do one better and move abroad to UCC headquarters and turn the company inside out, looking for secrets. If it worked, John could leapfrog all the way to the top of the ASIS, taking August with him. If it didn't work, it would cost nothing except pride. A win-win situation, aside from the long-distance relationship aspect, which hadn't seemed to concern John all that much even then.

It had sounded awfully grand and adventurous, and almost plausible with the successive scandals, crises, and accompanying rumors, all of which did a splendid job of pumping up August's adrenaline and interest levels beyond the realm of the rational. She loved her country, and she loved John Ward, and she had great ambitions. Visions danced of infiltrating the UCC servers with the panache of a hacker Jane Bond, uncovering irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing—any wrongdoing—and flying back to Australia within the fortnight for a welcome-home feast and a pat on the back.

Reality was a wet blanket. Breaking UCC, even from the inside, proved as impossible as catching the moon in a butterfly net. John took it even harder, coming to realize that impressions and politicking were more important than he could have imagined in a bureaucracy like the ASIS. His career could permanently stall thanks to his win-win situation.

With time and too many frigid late night NetMeet sessions, August grew more and more disillusioned and distant. The less she found, the more she needed to find to justify it all. And three years later, here she was.

But now she knew she wasn't the only one.

August put the newsprint back in her pocket. A simple conversation with an Iranian version of herself wasn't enough to convince her of anything. But the idea of having an ally, of not being the only one to sink her life into this wild goose chase, made the goose seem a little less illusory.

Nothing to lose and potentially something to gain: there were worse positions to be in.

But that wasn't the whole story, was it? Not with what Imran Muhammad's plan required August to do. There was still one thing she could lose, and the thought made her sick to her stomach.

August lay on the couch for an hour, telling herself she was planning; really, she was stalling. When she finally put on her headset and logged in, it was well after midnight. She took out her in-game phone, confirmed that James wasn't online, and immediately logged back out, expelling a painful breath.

She could dream just a little longer.