1000.12.2.2032

The fluorescent lights of McGill’s Lecture Hall A cast a sterile, warm glow over the tiered seating. Dr. Aris Thorne paces the front of the stage, a clicker in one hand, the giant projection screen behind him displaying a massive, tangled web of nodes and intersecting lines.

“Alright, we’re beginning on time. That’s a first.”

The hall responds brightly, including a couple of scoffs from some old faculty members standing off the side of the stage.

“Encryption, what is it? Does anybody remember?” Thorne asks, sweeping his gaze across the sea of glowing laptops.

Young. They’re all so young. And bright… So stupidly bright.

In the third row, a student in an oversized hoodie tentatively raises a hand. “It’s, uh... it’s a way of like… mixing. And uh… wait. It’s like… stirring the data so hackers can’t read your files? Like scrambling… like uh…”

Students around him stare and quietly laugh. Thorne offers a gentle, paternal smile. “Yeah….” He waves to the student. “Good. That’s good. I get it, a common answer and probably most people’s guess. Right?” A few of the listeners nod. “Let me build off of what you said. It doesn’t just mix data; it fundamentally transforms the information until the proper observer arrives.”

Just like I was, before I met Nancy. Written in another language. All mixed up. Unmendable.

His gaze rises to the board above him. He clicks the button. “It is absolute mathematical secrecy.”

1004.12.2.2032

The room smells of dust and stale coffee. The hum of server racks and a single blue-lit terminal. Two men, crisp, and dark-dressed stand over the keyboard. They are those without names. Their files sit in black folders.

“Upload is complete,” his voice flat. “The backdoor key is packaged. Routing it through the proxy nodes now.” One is quick on a computer. A dark labyrinth reflects on his glasses.

Two has two rules; he always stands and he always adjusts his watch. A drip of blue sweat makes its way across a red and wrinkled landscape. “Did we verify the recipient protocol?”

“Yes. Handshake confirmed. It’s in their system.”

“Nice job, kid. Damned if I barely know what the fuck is going on these days.”

1008.12.2.2032

Thorne clicks to the next slide: a news headline detailing a controversial piece of Canadian legislature.

“Which brings us to Bill C-22,” Thorne looks up at the screen, his voice dropping a register. “The mandate wishes for lawful access. The government is asking tech companies to assist the government that when there is a warrant for someone’s messages or data on an encrypted app. It forces all tech companies in Canada have to have some means to do so. Every major tech company has been trying desperately for years to explain to our government that in order to do so, you would need for example, a secondary decryption key or some kind of backdoor. There are only so many ways to problem solve as the software developer knows, and the government is trying to say they want a backdoor ‘without saying it’. But the companies are smart. They know that. They’ve been threatening to leave for years if this happens. But the bill is passing now. They call us “tinfoil hat” theorists—”
Pling.
Thorne looks down at his watch. “Your heart rate is higher than average. Please find a place to sit down and drink water. If you would like more information—”

Swipe.

”Look, all I’m saying is if you’re going to have users have encryption for privacy protection, you can’t have any backdoor. I mean come on guys, that’s just ridiculous. Imagine a master skeleton key for federal bodies to unlock private communications and data on networks like Telegram, Proton- I know some of you like VPN’s around here…”

Some students look at each other and laugh. A girl raises her hand jokingly.

Finally some nice ones. Last semester was terrible.

“Yeah I know… when can I finally game on campus without using a VPN? Well maybe it’s a good thing, it’s hard enough to get the Tim’s app to load on this wifi.”

Smirking, he looks at the dean to spot a smile above crossed arms.

“I hate to get serious here now. But this bill is seriously scary. Imagine if this had been standard practice five years ago. Think back to the Ukrainian theater. They successfully won that war because their decentralized, encrypted comms couldn’t be cracked by Moscow. I mean it’s one of the first wars where you had soldiers taking ‘Tiktoks’ of themselves in combat. If their government possessed a master key, I mean… Russia would have had it in five minutes. It would have compromised every front line soldier.

“This thing in your pocket…” The professor digs in his jacket. “I mean if I can find it…” He pulls it out and holds it sideways. “Talk about keys, this is a key. It’s a key to you!” Their heads turn as he walks down the aisles between them. “I mean, what I’m saying is… It’s the perfect tracker. Your whole life is interlayed with it, and so is your data. It’s the first major real time behavioural data tracker on a large scale. It offers pure behavioural surplus to any company smart enough to use it. In today’s day, between corporations and governments, that’s just about everyone…”

1015.12.2.2032

The cold of the Arctic Circle is absolute. It is knives waiting for your exposed skin. It is sand to the lungs, it brings them to cough. Slowly it enters the body, and never leaves. It blinds the eyes. It chokes the fires. It numbs. To most, to be cold is to be dead. To most. The heavy, rhythmic thumping fills the silence. The CH-147F Chinook lifts into the howling wind as it banks away into the pitch-black sky. The pad beneath it is barely visible except for the L of an H and the green of a light.

On the ice below, Master Corporal McMurray revs the throttle of his military-grade Ski-Doo. Frost clings to his thick beard. Beside the idling machines, a team of six Arctic huskies shifts restlessly in the powder, their breath pluming in the harsh beams of the vehicle’s headlights.

“What the fuck are you guys doing, hey?”
One of the dogs raises its head and smiles, eyes as blue as the midday sky.

The polar night is a physical weight here, a suffocating shroud of indigo and obsidian that seems to absorb the very sound of their breathing. Above, the stars are cold, distant lights in a black lake that offers no comfort. But there is a sense of calm that only the vast, indifferent silence of the high Arctic can bring. The tundra stretches out in every direction, a moonscape of jagged ice and wind-scoured drifts, beautiful in its lethal purity.

“Okay… are we going or what?” McMurray primes.

“Yes sir, we’re all ready to go.” Soldiers clad in Balaclavas, goggles and large parkas kick back onto their Ski-Doos. Rifles and satchels filled with various arctic stowage hang from the sides. The RPMs rise, gears grab and a loud whining echoes against the frozen land. The dogs bark, their excitement difficult to hide as they snuff clouds of silver vapor and drool. The patrol moves, cutting a lonely trail through the white tundra. The only light comes from the clinical blue-white of their headlamps and the shimmering curtains of emerald and violet that dance like spirits over a graveyard of ice. The soldiers can’t help but look up at the aurora borealis even as it’s filtered through thick snow clouds. McMurray glances down at the tactical scanner strapped to his forearm. A green blip pulses steadily.

“Yes...” Thorne says, walking back to the stage. “...encryption goes both ways. It helps the good guys…”

“Talon 1, we are hunting.”
“Anvil Actual, Talon 1. Copy that. Be advised, DATCAT is out of spec—”
“Anvil Actual, this is Sgt. Roger Murphy. Yeah, the handshake is sluggish and the uplink feels weird. We had some gaps in the communication timeline earlier. This high-def broadcast is essentially a beacon for all of you guys, okay? We’re pushing the maps and documents now, but keep your head on a swivel. Over.”
“Copy that.”
McMurray opens his phone as he drives with one hand. His eyes dart back between the glowing screen and the shifting terrain every time he hears the occasional scraping of rocks and plastic. Ever vigilant of every shadow. Another soldier leans over the front of his Ski-Doo, paranoid of crevices concealed by the banks.
“Hmmm. A small, unmanned sub… deep-water drone.... triggered a sonar buoy near the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf geological study lab. Oh shit, so I guess we’re going to see some scientists then?”

“Yes sir, that’s my understanding anyways.” The soldier leans back.

“Alright Nelson. I see how it is. Let’s hope one of them is hot.”

“If you can see them under their masks, sir…”

“One of them will definitely be hot, right? They’re usually mostly ugly but there’s always one weird one that’s attractive.”

One of the soldiers laughs, coughing as his breath is stolen by the frigid wind.
“Straight ahead, sir.”

McMurray’s Ski-Doo follows the others, churning through powder that feels like crushed glass. The dogs leap and bound through the endless white, so naturally they flow through it with every stride. The soldiers whip and brace through every dip and drift, as if racing in relay, ready to be blown off at any given moment. As they approach the perimeter of the civilian drilling site, the massive rigs stand like iron skeletons in the dark. Encrusted with hoarfrost, it glitters like diamonds in the dark.

One of the huskies stops, paw raised in the air, a statue of muscle and fur silhouetted against the aurora.

McMurray whistles, looking around at the others as they slow to a halt, the engines idling in a low, rhythmic thrum. The dog looks past the drilling equipment, focusing on something hidden in the deep dark between the modular Hab-units.

The dog’s name Fox, a slightly smaller husky. He flaps his tongue as he sniffs the air with his pink and black nose. The rest of the dogs begin to slow down, staring into the abyss, sniffing frantically, ears pinned back against their soft foreheads. “Turn them off!” McMurray says, whipping hand through the air.

One by one they turn their keys, killing their engines. Beams of their fog lamps catThe next page will be up within the next couple of days!ch snow midair and light up the dark steel exteriors of the site. The porcelain whites of their eyes glance at each other. The sound of the wind howls through the metal skeleton of the drilling rig. Ping. One dot. McMurray looks down. His forearm scanner, usually a steady map of blue and white, is hemorrhaging green. Ping. Another. “Oh my god,” he whispered, the words freezing in his throat. He can feel the eyes of the other soldiers on him now. Pulsing, jagged green lines spiked through the blue waves, marking contacts. Ten. Twenty. McMurray freezes. He stares at the shadows between the modular Hab-units.

The dogs were snarling now, lips pulled back, fur bristling along their spines as they stared into the absolute abyss of the drilling site. Fox, a smaller husky, let out a low, vibrating growl that barely masked a whimper of fear. McMurray felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. Every shadow, every drift of snow looks like a figure crouching, waiting. The light from his screen reflects off his face, painting him in a sickly, radioactive glow. He realizes, with a sickening jolt, that he is a beacon in the night. He is lighting up his own position.

“Sir?” Nelson’s voice cracked, eyes locked on the same inhabited darkness.

“Don’t move,” McMurray breathed. He pointed toward the Hab-Lab, and began to unbuckle the strap on his wrist. Quietly. Slowly. His eyes remain locked onto the drill site. When suddenly, the glowing fades. Reduced to silence. They all stare at his now-silent scanner. McMurray can’t break eye contact with the shadows. In the stillness of the dark, something moves, if just ever so slightly. Something was out there, watching them.

To be continued…