Chapter 26: // Privacy Policy

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Lots of folks on the darknet resent the random fMRI brain scans. Even though they’re administered by remote operator in a double-blind format, I frequently hear complaints about invasion of privacy. The issue is whether citizens of a democracy claim the right to lie on matters of material significance. Individual privacy must be weighed against the corrosive effect of lies in the public discourse.

Handel_B****/ 173 9th-level fMRI Technician

It had been twenty-one years since Stanislav Ibanescu had worn the uniform of the Securitate, but he had never stopped making a living as a soldier. The world over, war was a growth business, and he knew he’d never go unemployed like his brothers. And earlier in the evening he had thought that no one back home would have believed that he was invading America. It had all been a dream come true.

But that was three hours ago and a long drive down dark roads into unknown captivity. Who these people were who held him was anyone’s guess—but they sure didn’t seem like a ragtag group of terrorists.

He considered the night’s events. The op had gone off without a hitch, and they were about to kill the target subject and leave. But a counterstrike team had assaulted them out of nowhere. The look-outs hadn’t reported a thing. In fact, Ibanescu hadn’t seen more than half a dozen of his men since they’d been captured.

Were they U.S. Army? Socom units? They were supposed to have free rein in this area. That’s what they’d been told by their contact, but it must have been a setup. Now he knew half his men were either dead or wounded, and the other half had been divided up and trundled off to god knew where. Now the tables had turned, and men who looked like science-fiction convention warriors in plastic armor and full headgear with mother-of-pearl faceplates were marching him down a white hallway glowing with light. Ibanescu was strapped to a backboard—even his head had been completely immobilized, and he knew what was coming next was torture. They were going to waterboard him, like he’d heard the Americans did. He was just hoping that this was a professional crew—one reachable by logic. One not doing this for kicks. He could then clear up this mistake. Because that was what it must be. Perhaps they were a local unit—one that hadn’t been informed. One thing was sure: this was going to cost extra. In any event, it couldn’t be worse than what he’d received at the hands of the Chechens.

The two armored soldiers brought Ibanescu into a strange chamber filled with what looked to be medical scanning equipment—like some sort of MRI or CAT scan equipment—cold and efficient. And even though he didn’t see anything around that could be used to torture him, he didn’t imagine it was far away.

Mercifully, he didn’t see any place where they could waterboard him without getting some expensive equipment wet.

The guards lifted the backboard holding their prisoner up onto a platform beneath the scanning equipment, and then lashed the board to the scanner bed.

Here we go.

He was suddenly sliding with the whir of electric motors, moving deeper into the scanning machine. Were they perhaps checking him for injuries? That seemed odd.

The backboard jerked to a stop, and Ibanescu soon heard the telltale sound of MRI magnets hammering, chirping, and pinging for one or two minutes. He’d gone through this before in Switzerland after a head injury while skiing.

As the scanning continued, a soothing female voice came to his ears, speaking English. Inbanescu knew some English, and he was able to decipher it.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

It was an oddly synthetic-sounding voice. He decided to pretend he didn’t understand and just kept staring up at the interior of the scanning machine.

“Yes. You do understand me.”

They were bluffing. He felt certain.

“Is English your primary language?” A pause. “No. It isn’t. Let’s find your primary language.”

This was strange. It definitely sounded like an artificial voice. Like something he might hear from a credit card or airline customer service line. Very strange. He wondered if this was some sort of automated interrogation system. Leave it to the Americans.

The soothing female voice spoke in a dozen different languages, waiting five or six seconds between each. Ibanescu didn’t understand any of them, although he thought he could detect French and German. Also Czech. Eventually she came to Rumanian. . . .

“Is your native language Rumanian?”

He was damned if he was going to answer. He just lay there like a statue.

Her voice responded differently this time. “Yes. You are Rumanian, aren’t you?”

He frowned. How the hell . . . ?

The rest of her words came to him in slightly stilted, synthetic-voiced Rumanian. “This machine is a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. It monitors the blood activity in your brain to identify patterns of deception, recognition, and emotion—such as fear or anger. You will be unable to evade my inquiries. So please relax and enjoy your interrogation.”

Ibanescu just frowned at the machine around him.

“Please speak your full name and place of birth.”

Were they serious? He wasn’t about to tell them anything. He just lay there silently.

“It appears you are either unable or unwilling to respond.”

Suddenly a map of the globe was projected onto the ceiling of the scanning chamber. It looked a lot like a Web mapping program, with the globe spinning slowly in space. The map zoomed in on Rumania as the globe stopped spinning.

“Where were you born?”

Asking again wasn’t going to help. It did feel comforting to see the map of his homeland, however. It was a detailed, physical map, showing the mountains and lakes. He could see a dot on the map for his hometown of Piteşti, northwest of Bucureşti.

Before he knew it, the view of the map centered on Piteşti.

Holy shit. Was this system tracking his eyes? Did it sense that he was focusing on Piteşti? What an idiot he was to fall for that! The map was zooming in now to a full-screen satellite view of Piteşti. He shut his eyes.

“You are from Piteşti, aren’t you?” There was a pause during which Ibanescu clenched his eyes tightly. “Yes, you are. This is where you were born, isn’t it? Do you still have family there?” A pause. “Yes. You do.”

He was starting to lose his mind. How was this hellish machine discovering these things? It was obviously reading his neural activity or something. This was a nightmare.

“I have access to records from this . . . nation state. Let’s discover who you are. Does your last name begin with an . . . A?”

Ibanescu realized that closing his eyes wasn’t going to help. He opened them again and just stared at the detailed aerial view of his hometown. This was insane. He was being processed by a machine that was sucking the information through his ears.

“Does your name begin with B? C? D? E? . . .” And on it went.

He just stared in numb disbelief as the machine finally came to “I” and then halted. It asked again. “I?” A pause. “Good. Now the second letter. Is it A? B?” Another pause. “B? Good. Now the third letter . . .”

And so it continued with relentless precision until it had teased Ibanescu’s name from his mind. It finally said in a stilted, machine mispronunciation, “Mr. Ibanescu, what is your legal first name?”

A series of names scrolled slowly across the ceiling in front of him, but he no longer tried to close his eyes. What was the point? He knew it would simply speak the letters into his ears—which was even more excruciating.

Sure enough, as the list scrolled down through the S’s and centered on “Stanislav,” the scroll slowed. Then stopped. “Stanislav” was highlighted in bold. “Stanislav Ibanescu. Is this your legal name?”

He knew there would be a pause, followed by the inevitable, “Yes. This is your legal name. Are you Stanislav Ibanescu of Trivale bloc 25A?”

Now he did close his eyes. This machine had in a matter of ten minutes completely identified him. It now knew who his family was, his history, everything. What a nightmare technology was. Then he thought, If we had had this technology in the Securitate, we would never have fallen from power. Whoever was doing this was someone he wanted to be part of. These people were winners.

Just when you think America is finished . . .

Now he was looking at his official state identification photo, his employment history, and his military history. It showed that he was currently employed by Alexandru International Solutions. His most recent tax copayments were from his employer, and this system seemed to have access to all of it.

“Were you sent here by your current employer . . . Alexandru International Solutions?” There was a pause. “Yes, you were.” Another pause. “Did your job responsibilities include perpetrating acts of violence against unarmed civilians?” Another pause. “Yes. It did.” Yet another pause. “The financial resources of . . . Alexandru International Solutions . . . have just been deleted.”

He tried to shake his head in disbelief, but couldn’t even manage that in the viselike grip of the head restraints.

“Now let’s determine your social network. What is the primary means you use to contact your handler? Is it e-mail?” A pause. “No. Is it phone?” A pause. “Yes. By phone. What is the first digit of your contact’s phone number? Is it 1... 2... ?”

Ibanescu sighed deeply. His career, if not his life, was over. He stared intently ahead.

“I would like application. Yes? Is this the word? Application?”