Angela Mohammad was very much a modern Scot. A product of global forces at work in the world. Her grandfather had landed at Glasgow Airport in 2016, fleeing from the new Cold War then being fought in Assad's Syria between the West and Russia. It was meant to be a temporary status of refugee, until the war ended and the West won. But the West had not won, and old man Nasser al Mohammad had lived the final span of his mortal days in Rothesay - the principal and only town on the island of Bute - together with his wife, Haya.
They had brought with them one child, a boy called Kaashif, who Nassar renamed Kenneth (in memory of one of the favourite British movie actors of his childhood, Kenneth More). Such was the effort he made to distance themselves from being Syrian or refugees. Angela's father had often told her of having to keep schtum at home when the imam of the Glasgow Central Mosque would make his monthly visits; his parents sitting in absolute quiet in the flat overlooking Guildford Square until the Saudi man stopped knocking and shouting, "daeni 'udkhil - let me in!" - and finally went away from their door. However, old man Nasser had dutifully attended the makeshift mosque on Fridays at the room lent to them by St Andrew's Roman Catholic Church, but as the next generation arrived, the congregation got consumed by the post-war atheism of the first generation of Arab Brandanes.
Kenneth Mohammad had married a local girl, Natalie St John, who's parents had fled Skipton in Yorkshire for the quieter and safer life of a remote Scottish island. In this Angela was a typical Scottish islander of her generation: no Scottish parents, fluent in conversational Gaelic, speaking almost perfect English English, hyper-confident and bursting with life. Everyone in the modern, successful Scotland she was born into, so it seemed, was apparently posh and sounded as if they were from Edinburgh or St Andrews.
But, as can still happen on a beautiful yachting day on the Clyde, the wee country had suddenly lost its wind and sunshine, and was soon to find itself becalmed, chilly and out of fuel.
Allow me to recap events. Russia, through its proxy, Iran, had finally snuffed out the EU- and US-backed rebellion in Syria around 2021. The Americans had become deeply divided over foreign wars. After the Trump terms no president had commanded absolute adherence and loyalty in the US. The EU was still deeply wounded from the withdrawal of the UK, Italy and Hungary. Hungary had found a safe fold back in the arms of Mother Russia, and the UK had slowly disintegrated as power continued to bleed from London to the regions and nations.
The world Angela had been born into was very different from the one before the over-promoted Arab Spring. Entire countries had gone, and power had slipped east from Europe and the USA to the giants of Russia, India and China, none of which could ever agree with each other. The Russia Today headline on her first birthday was of a new UN leadership structure formed by an equal partnership of China, India, the USA and Russia.
Scotland's momentum had led to an effective UDI in 2032. Better that than bitter divorce proceedings against their huge, bruised, southern neighbour. More an agreement to live apart for a little time, or longer. No border posts. No exchange of populations. An agreement to recognise what had become the effective status quo.
But, that wasn't quite true. Scotland never quite understood the novel experiment of democracy. Scots trying to sell their homes and empty their bank accounts in order to flee across the border between Berwick and Gretna found their documents and money frozen. No laws were passed, just a firm and effective state hand grasping them tightly by their vital assets. This act of state fear set in course the events which had now led to the appearance of non-citizens who could neither work, nor pay for anything, nor leave the country. Politicians and the Press ignored the rising issue of the non-citizens, preferring to concentrate on the great state achievements of increasing the Scottishness of the new state.
Angela Mohammad worked for the RusFin Scottish State Bitcoin Mine in Edinburgh. She had taken a triple-first pass in Finance, Law and Computing Science from the Apple University of Edinburgh and was on target to join the reborn Scottish finance sector, which she did shortly after graduating in 2035 in a virtual reality simulation of Bilbo Baggins last birthday party. (She went as an Elf.)
Her studies had covered much on the historic importance of finance to Scotland, from the Darien bankruptcy, through the GB Union growth of Edinburgh's insurance/gambling club, to the collapse of the banking system in the early part of the century, the obsolescence of physical cash in the 2020's and the rise of non-state global currencies. Although there was still gold and a few major currencies like the Dollar, Rouble and Yuan, smaller countries now used digital variations based on the Bitcoin. Scotland's banks, once household names, were gone, disappeared in a huge puff of local greed and global reality. As yesterday as steam trains, television and voting.
The present was digital. The future? - few dared to speculate. To do so openly was seen to be anti-Scottish. A difficult line to hold for a girl whose father was Syrian and mother was English. It was a dichotomy for many in the new Scotland. Angela had taken a leading part in debates in moot courts at university, but had been scrupulous to take different sides each time. Her tutors thought she was a model new Scot, but she was only engaging with the different sides of every argument. Above soil she was a perfect pear tree, but this was grafted on to a wild, strong root-stock growing up from her personal international knowledge of other places and other times. A Scot, smart, well-educated, capable - but a globally aware citizen of the kind few states have ever ultimately found it comfortable to live with in the wild.
"No-one likes a smart-ass."
That was just one of the comments on the latest post on her vlog, An Arabian in Edinburgh, by one @zandercracker. Angela had kept the vlog since entering Apple Edinburgh eight years back, and @zandercracker had since become one of her regular respondents. He was ever witty and sharp, but there had been a gradual ramping-up of his responses. As an IT specialist this did not really bother her, much. The vlog was based on a server in Moscow, and so it was well outside the control and interference of Holyrood. One simply does not annoy the Russians ...
Her position as white hat hacking evangelist at RusFin used her Apple yooni knowledge well. The big issue she was personally investigating was the rise, and rise, of non-citizens. Those who had become digitally lost in cyberspace, but still very obviously occupied the real world’s 3D space. Someone somewhere had been interfering with the RusFin records. The problem was: this is impossible. At least that's what she had been taught in her honours classes in the Sir Timothy O'Shea Building in George Square. All data, to be truly safe, was protected by the blockchain process, as developed by Bitcoin. It was practically impossible to remove or change any information without affecting the history of that item prior to removal.
This was why the world's minor currencies all went crypto. No more forgeries of coins and notes, cross-currency transaction charges or inflation-driving government money-printing exercises. The real mafias were now reduced to trading in dollars and roubles. The Americans and Russians left the mafias themselves deal with forgers by, well, deleting them.
But, someone or something had become involved in the nigh-infinite, varied and distributed world of datachain blocks; and records were going missing - totally missing. In a vlog a few months ago she had postulated, "If something is virtually impossible, then it is possible, and if it is possible, then it can be done, and, if it can be done then, sooner or later, someone will do it." That's when @zandercracker went open,
"You think you are someone, darling. Well, you're not anything more than your digital record. Data can get lost."
She traced @zandercracker quickly - and far-too-easily - to Haifa in Greater Israel. There she hit a Mossad firewall. Angela knew she'd left a trace of her arrival. She could had kicked herself for being so naïve. Before she finished the cup of coffee on her desk she knew that everyone who was anyone would know she had been seen poking around the world's prime security hub.
Angela stood up and looked out her apartment window towards Edinburgh Castle. The apartment building was 19th century outside, but almost new inside. The walls were clean white, Canadian maple flooring, Afghan rugs, voice-controlled everything from make-the-toast to clean-the-dishes. As if to prove this, Angela put down her empty coffee mug, "Tidy and clean the flat, Mario. OK?" An Italian piezo-electric voice said, "a-OK, Angel!". A Korean robot dressed as a garishly-coloured, fat, plumber, appeared from beneath the floor, gathered her mug and plate, took them to the kitchen, returned to wipe the desk surface, then retreated to a space under the floor. The sound of the dish cleaner hummed.
"Beethoven, ninth symphony, third movement, Berlin Phil, Otto Klemperer, Mario. OK?"
The sound of the 1970's came out of the walls. "Quieter, Mario. OK?" The long-dead German orchestra diminuendoed from mf to mp. Her iPhoneXL purred. A message from her boss, Dr Alex Nutt. Angela took it out and the vmail ran, "Angela, we need to talk. 8.30am tomorrow. My office. Out."
"Out". He always liked playing the old-time movie hack. On east coast days when the haar came in off the North Sea he was even to be seen wearing an Aquascutum trench coat and a royal fur felt fedora hat. Everyone called him, "Humphrey". He liked to think it was because he looked like Humphrey Bogard, but really it was because he resembled the Downing Street cat, Humphrey, who famously went in and out of every door and into any room without needing to ask anyone's permission. Such was the power of the Principal White Hat Hacker at the huge RusFin complex in Edinburgh.
The dish cleaner finished its 100 second cycle as the mug was repositioned beside the Nespresso automatic coffee machine. Less than five minutes from her missed step to getting a summons to meet the cat. Impressive. In her head Angela saw the new data blocks in the chain storing her mistake, his response and her read request, together with times, locations, visuals, temperatures, light levels - all duplicated, triplicated and algebraically multiplied and placed on random servers anywhere in the world - added to a random mish-mash of other event trails from who-knows-where - then each block was mathematically calculated and verified on content, time and location - and more.
It was practically impossible to interfere with any blockchain record. The system was fool-proof. But, whoever was doing this was no fool.
At 6am Mario brought her breakfast: fresh-baked croissant, newly-pressed New Zealand apple juice, ground Columbian coffee and Bute cream from Kerrylamont Farm. She then exercised lightly in her gym for twenty minutes, showered and dressed. She touched the lift-call and then headed down in the glass escalator on the Rose Street side of the building. She presented her phone at the tram, the door opened, and she headed down to Corstorphine. Somewhere all these data event records were being added to around the world. Within 100ms there would be one million or more copies of her journey from Princes Street to Meadow Place Road.
She touched the door of the RusFin offices, which opened into a person-sized glass room, closing behind her. In front of her was the cleanliness and quiet order of one of the world's leading IT agencies. The Cyrillic letters р ф in pure gold 1500 point were inlaid on the marble floor. She touched the inner glass door to be met by Kirill Nevskii, the uniformed guard, "Ms Angela Mohammad. You come with me, now, please." He spoke gently, leaning slightly forward to her, as he took her right arm in his left hand. His green eyes spoke nothing.
It was all so discreet. She felt her heart rate rise. "Damn - that will be on my blockchain record too", she thought. He moved behind her and walked into the lift. If she had wanted to run - to where? - he was right behind her and the open steel box in front of her. The lift rose, stopped at the top floor, the door opened and she got out - he was still behind her and was getting out, so, little choice. He was never anything other than professional, discreet and polite. It was a long way from his training base in Kiev, but Mother Russia still produced the world's best operatives.
"Ah - Angela! Do come in. How nice of you to come. Take a seat. I expect this won't take long." Nutt was in full flow and relaxed. He offered her a bowl of fruit. Not to be outdone she took an English Cox's Orange Pippin and bit into it. The apple was sweet and delicious, and quiet to eat. A glass of water was by her side, placed there by a small robot dressed as Sam Spade in various shades of black-and white movie gray.
Nutt sat on his desk corner, one foot on the floor, close enough for familiarity, but not enough to invade her personal space. Somewhere every word, image, breath, heartbeat and more were being recorded and distributed to the great blockchain of worldwide data. Unpollutable. Unchangeable. As solid as Castle Rock just a couple of kilometres away.
Nutt turned to his tablet. "At 8.30pm yesterday evening you made an attempt to enter a secure zone controlled by Israeli Mossad. This was reported to me, Bute House, the Kremlin, and doubtless others from Jerusalem to Washington and Beijing by 8.31pm." He put it down on his desk and stood up. Nutt was good, and he liked his method acting too. He walked to the window and looked out towards Fife. The Forth bridges gleamed in the distance as a cloudburst broke over Kirkcaldy.
The walls were bricked and lead-coated, mounted inside and out with window-sized video screens. The inside view was being projected from roof-mounted cameras. To anyone looking at the offices a VR simulation was run 24/7, making the block look like a typical busy office block. The avatars were images of all the staff then present. As they entered they were added to the simulation, moving realistically around the projected simulation. (Rumour had it that the game engine was based on the core code of Theme Hospital.)
As he faced the pixellated window, he spoke, "Can I ask what you were doing?"
Angela was annoyed by the faux-spy antics, "Why are you asking me? I haven't done anything wrong." She knew instantly that it was the wrong answer. Time stood still. The rain had moved on to Crail. The door behind her opened and Nevskii came in,
"Miss Mohammad, if you please."
His hand was on her arm. Nutt never moved. It was an Oscar performance. Angela felt her blood boil,
"Its about my bloody vlog, isn't it? Under Scots Law I have the right to speak in public. The servers are based in the Russian Federation." Nevskii's grip toughened, just a bit. "Get your bloody hands off me, Kirill!"
Mutt turned to face her. "Goodbye, Miss Mohammad."
In the old days you'd have been given a box to tidy up your photos, pens, mugs and - always on old movies - video tapes. But today everything is virtual, even identification badges. Nevskii, carrying her coat, carefully herded her to the lift which took her to the ground floor. He spoke one word, "Dver." The steel wall behind them opened unexpectedly and he gently but firmly escorted her out of the lift into a small outside area with recycling bins. He firmly took her across the courtyard and into the street, bidding her, "Proschay", as he helped her on with her coat.
She was outside the building, on the street and out of a job. But these were the least of her problems.
Angela was going to take the tram, but decided to walk up St John's Road towards the city centre. She needed to come to terms with what had just happened. Then a penny dropped: @zandercracker was, of course, Alexander 'zander' Nutt 'cracker', her recent boss, hiding in clear view. "Stupid!" she hissed as she went into a coffee shop.
"A small latte and a slice of millionaires, please." She took out her phone and presented it at the pay terminal. Silence. In her head pennies were dropping, but not in the till. "I'm sorry, but you seem to be out of credit", said the barista. "Yes. So it would seem", she replied, calmly. She left and tried to catch a tram, but her tram pass on her phone was also invalid. Her refugee grandfather insisted she kept $1000 in cash at all times. "Saved my life when your father was only a child". She kept it in the back of her phone case, but, apart from that, she was busted. Someone had deleted her finances and ... what else?
Angela walked to George Square in the Edinburgh University student quarter and walked into the Busker's Arms. It was a student pub where you could buy and sell not-quite legit materiel (watched by various government agencies, of course, intended to keep the slightly dark trade so beloved of young students away from becoming definitely black).
"A sparkling water and a box of falafel with tahini, please. Paying in dollars." Angela watched as the bartender scribbled an order to the chef, did mental calculation from bitcoins to dollars. "Seven dollars fifty cents." She handed over the ten dollar note and gave her the two dollars change. The rest was his cut for the dollars.
She sat down on a bar stool. Sipping the water, she pulled out her phone and looked at it. Nothing. She wasn't surprised that it didn't sparkle into life with its usual cheery, madainn mhath or feasgar math. In her head she was systematically working away at the problem: sacked from her role as white hat hacker evangelist at Russian Finance plc, bank account empty and phone not recognising her from her online face profile. "I bet I won't get back into my flat either", she concluded.
The falafel was good. It reminded her of Uncle Ahmed's cafe on Rothesay. Suddenly she was homesick and began to weep uncontrollably. No-one noticed; such is the coldness of the east coast. She really missed her parent's home, the sound and smells of the Clyde seaside - vinegar, grease, seagulls and ferries. Her tears watered the tahini as she sniffed and ate. By the time she was done, the wave had solidified into an urge to get away from Edinburgh and get back home by any means.
$990 wouldn't take her that far. Physical currency only worked in the grey marketplace, not in supermarkets, hotels, trains or buses. Everyone relied on virtual banking, with records being kept of every movement of cash, and almost every movement of people. But, she realised, she was no longer a person, she had become a non-citizen. Her research had suddenly become participant-observer - she had become embedded as an actor in her subject field.
Finishing off the last of the falafel, she remembered the lectures of Professor Cohen-Levi at the graduate school. His family were Syrian refugees from the Jewish flight in 1948. Her family background had created a special, entirely correct, bond during the seminars and over cups of hot sweet Arab tea. "Room OSH B17, South Block", she said out loud to nobody listening. She pocketed the rest of the bottle of sparkling water, and headed out and towards the ugly concrete library building next to the O'Shea Building.
Security was, as usual lax, as she smiled at the security guard. He still remembered her and didn't bother her for her phone id. She walked up the stairs, down a pale yellow corridor and past out-of-date notices of seminars and examinations. She knocked at the door and waited, looking directly at the camera. The door sang a welcome, shalom eleichem!, and swung opened. The familiar little man was at his desk, surrounded with his old books and computer monitors. Every surface in the room was covered with papers and notes.
"Angela. So nice to see you. Come in."
He held out his hand and hugged her, a bit too tightly, whispering in her ear, "Don't speak; I know what has happened". He released her, stood back, a full 20cm shorter than the young Brandane, and smiled, tilting his head to one side. "Salaam eliakim! Sorry for the wrong Syrian dialect greeting on my door - I must have pressed the wrong button on my desk." He looked across at the piles of papers covering his desk surface.
"Come! I am just about to take a lunchtime walk down Holyrood Road to the Park and the Crags. Join me?" He put his coat on, offering her the crook of his arm. They left the room. As soon as he left the display changed to "OUT To LUNCH" as per his recorded habits, online diary and the university's AI administration control program. At any time everyone's whereabouts would be known and recorded.
As they headed up the crags path he chattered about Arabia, Greater Israel and Russia - his three great loves. They turned a corner and the city dropped from sight. "Right, my girl. Nobody can track us here. Since you are a digital non-person now, your arrival at my office was not recorded, and officially I am walking alone, as I usually do at this time. What is your analysis?"
It was like being back in one of his seminars, but this time it was a real scenario. "I have been deleted for causing trouble, ignoring warnings and insubordination."
"Come, come. I expected better from my star student. Now tell me, what is going on." He checked his watch. They had seven minutes left before he had to return, alone.
"Someone is manipulating the blockchain."
"Who? Why? When? How?" The professor was in full flow.
"Most likely, either the Russians, the Americans, the Israelis or the English."
He nodded, his few remaining whips of hair blowing in the sharp breeze. "Yes. Most likely."
"But, I thought that the blockchain was totally secure. At least I used to think that. Now I know it is not. I was really stupid. How did that get past me?"
"Don't beat yourself up about it, l'vayvy, making mistakes is what being human is all about." Had she been only forty years older he would have asked her out on a date. But she was his little grand-daughter by unofficial adoption. "You can keep records and make as many procedures as you want, but we are not rational beings; we are driven by our hearts first", he added, looking across at the jagged stone-edged High Street.
As he stood he turned to face her. "Go to my flat in the Meadows. The entry system will let you in if you carry this RFID card." He handed her what appeared to be a store loyalty card. "You are now Sarah Yehuda - I hope you don't mind. Your phone please." She handed him the phone, He opened up the back cover and removed the $990. "Since you are holding my card, traceable back to me, I need to ensure that you can trust me and that I can trust you. Is it a deal?" He smiled at her. Angela's face blanked. She paused as he held the roll of dollars. Seconds ticked away, then she reached out and took back the valueless phone. He waited a few seconds, then pocketed the roll discretely.
"Good. You can trust me, Angela. Now, go to my flat and wait for me to arrive. I'll be there around 5:45pm. Make yourself a lattè - at least let my robot, Theodor, do it for you. We'll see then what can be done to get you home." She smiled broadly as she shook his offered hand. They both smiled. The wiry little professor then turned round and walked speedily back down the great rock towards his office. His phone rang and he answered it,
"Yes. She came. No, I don't think she has been elsewhere or tailed. The Russians stupidly turned her off and so they lost her too. Alexander Nuttolahy at RusFin is going to miss staying at his dacha this summer, I expect. Am yisrael chai to you too, Ari! I think we can reel her in. It's best you be there before 5.15pm."
Angela Mohammad walked slowly down the long slow slope towards Holyrood Park. Below her was spread one of the world's beautiful cities with its church spires, soaring stone buildings, bridges and the great Castle of Edinburgh. Her mind was wandering back to her uncle's yacht, Jamila, berthed at Port Banatyne. Already the day had turned for her. She breathed gently as she walked to The Meadows. She pulled out the card which said, "Sarah Yehuda, 47B Meadow Lane, Edinburgh."
Sarah approached the beautiful ground floor flat double-door, painted in Lincoln green, and walked up the broad stone steps. She presented the card, the camera clicked once, the door chime said, "Welcome, Sarah!" and the leftmost door swung open. Sarah stepped in. The door closed behind her at safe house number 27, MOSAD British Isles.