Prime Target: Chapter 1 - locked doors

“Where’s Yaakov Chaim?” Moshe stormed into the house, a tornado with a backpack. “There was police and he wasn’t there the whole day.”

“Yeah, where’s Mikey?” His father echoed.

After an unfortunate accident five years back involving a menorah, a microphone and an explosion, Yaakov Chaim Abram had become Mikey. Only his older brother Moshe still hung onto the old name.

“I even went to ask his creepy teacher. Mr Erdos. He said he wasn’t there.”

Rachel sighed. This was not how she had planned to tell them. “Mikey’s had to go into protection for a while,” she said slowly. “He witnessed something. A crime.”

“Oh,” said Moshe through a face full of egg salad, “then I’ll have the bedroom to myself.”

Mr Abram gave Rachel a significant look. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” she says foolishly. Stupid, stupid.

“Ah. Well, this is our son. I’d like to think I can be bothered for him. I mean, I’m a freelance guitarist, not a… a…” he thought furiously. “A fighter pilot. I’m available!” He breathed deeply for a full minute. “I forgive you. Now, where is Mikey?”

Mikey was still out of it. He was in a building called the Frustum, but he didn’t know it. There were a ridiculous number of floors, each one slightly smaller than the one below it. Three months earlier, in a big round office three levels above Mikey’s soft grey prison, there had been a team meeting.

Three months earlier

Amelie was wearing her Dior x Air Jordan 1 High OG grey sneakers. This was a pair that made her feel like a sci-fi warrior, a woman dressed to kill – literally. She tapped her foot, clad in $9,740.58 worth of sneaker, impatiently as she waited for her colleagues - underlings, really - to silence.

“Planning will now commence,” she said when they wouldn’t be quiet. “You are here because Mikey Abram has now turned fifteen. Mikey Abram is this.”

She clicked a remote and an image appeared on the projector. A teenage boy with the face of a child, a kippah on his brown hair.

“Some of you will never have heard of Project Big Brother, so I’m supposed to update you. The idea is to keep track of talent, because talent is dangerous and useful. There’s this AI, the Big Brother, and it, like, flags children with high BDNF numbers-”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Peters, a blond New Zealander with a medical background pointed out. “BDNF is one noisy piece of a much bigger puzzle. It’s involved in synaptic plasticity, but a blood level doesn’t tell us how smart someone is. And that’s without the ethical concerns.”

“Wow, did you google that all by yourself? Anyone who thinks it is ethical to let a kid know the secrets of your respective governments can remove themselves from the room immediately.”

“I’ll stay put,” said Peters unnecessarily, and stayed put.

“As I was saying. They don’t work straight from BDNF numbers, by the way. The AI factors in a bunch of geeky genetic stuff and the exceptional kids get offered free therapy and science summer camps so it can track them. But I’m being boring.”

“You are,” someone said.

“Wow, so smart you’re like a walking encyclopedia. Now. That kid on the screen, when he turned fifteen, the Big Brother techs were going to remove him from the potential-threat list. To test his emotional development, they gave him a math problem that cannot be solved. And whaddaya know, he solved it, and now he’s our problem.”

There was a rumble of conversation across the room. Amelie stalked to the door of the room, hit an intercom, and was met almost immediately by a secretary with a stack of binders and some mustard.

She passed out the binders and opened the mustard. Some lucky individuals who had never had the misfortune of watching Amelie’s eating habits were staring at her anxiously.

She squirted mustard on her fingers, then licked it off fastidiously. Wiped her hands on a tissue. Snapped open the binder.

“Read it,” she urged. “Read the information. We’re going to capture this kid. Find out how he broke the algorithm. Then we find a way to defuse him. Any questions?”

Present day

Mikey was hungry. Mikey was tired. Mikey’s arm was hurting, and so was the rest of him. Arthritic flare-up.

The walls were covered with velcroed grey padding. So was the floor. The room was a perfect cube, completely smooth except for strip lights and a single panel- Mikey guessed that was the door. He crawled over to it though his joints were screeching. Pushed it. Locked, of course.

The situation didn’t bother him much. It was like being in a dream: nothing to worry about, just an empty buffer of time without an apparent end. Peaceful, almost. He didn’t know how much time had passed; maybe he wasn’t in Ottawa anymore. But the police would take care of everything. He lay back on the padded floor and hummed tunelessly.

In a big round office three levels above the soundproof room, Amelie was going over their respective roles.

“PR and keeping family Abram happy: Wilson, De Leon, Kaur. Good job so far.”

Eloise Kaur blushed at the rare compliment, and Amelie pretended not to notice, handing out the technical roles.

“Standby field agents: Levy, Norton, Singh. There’s also unit 56 at your disposal, if plans A, B and C fail.”

“Unit 56?” That was Levy, an outspoken young American. “Sir- I mean Madame – um, why do we need an anti-terrorism unit?”

“Because, my dear madame – I mean sir,” Amelie rejoined, “Classified information only stays Eyes Only for so long. Sooner or later we’ll have China and Russia on to him. This cipher is a big deal. As I’ve been saying for weeks.”

Levy shrugged, unabashed. You got used to Amelie when you worked for the Frustum.

“And that brings us on to Arthur Emerson, the cipher expert, straight from England. Welcome to the Frustum.”

“Much obliged,” said the silver-haired Emerson with a polite nod.

“Last add-on,” Amelie sighed, playing with a mustard bottle. “I fought long and hard with the big bosses. I said FVEY is big enough and secrets are secrets. But they said no, Israel’s joining the team or there is no team. So we’re getting Noam Regev, psychologist. He’s not here yet – here he is. Perfect timing, dude.”

Regev was lithe and tan, with green-brown eyes and black hair, cut short. He was looking around the room approvingly. Satisfied, he leaned against a wall.

“Nice room,” Regev said with a smile. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” muttered Levy.

“Last-minute briefing.” Amelie put down the bottle. “Now it’s go time. Whenever you’re ready, Regev…”

Movement caught Mikey’s eye. The door was opening slowly, unobtrusively.

“Hello,” said the man, without coming in. “I’m Noam. I brought you meds for your flare-up.” He held up a cup of water and a blister pack. “Want some?”

“No,” Mikey said. “You’re a stranger and they were talking about drugs.”

“Back at the police station? Yes, they were. But I think you’ve realised that drugs aren’t involved here.”

“Can I see the packaging?” Mikey scooted over to the door. Took the box, examined it.

Tylenol. “Good. I can’t have ibuprofen because that won’t work with my meds.”

Regev nodded and smiled blankly. Mikey popped a pill and drank the water. After that they were both quiet, each waiting for the other to speak.

“If I didn’t witness a drug related crime,” Mikey said suddenly, “Why are you keeping me here?”

Noam knew he was cleared to reveal this, but it felt wrong to say it. “RSA.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

“Didn’t Wilson – I mean, the guy in the police station – explain it to you?”

“Explain it, no. I wasn’t listening.”

“You know more about the actual mathematics than I do, Mikey. What you’re missing is the significance. You know in the early days of computing, banks would have operatives travelling to all their branches with suitcases full of keys, so that they could communicate in code? Most codes need a key to be exchanged. And it’s very, very expensive to fly across the world just to hand out keys.

“That’s where Rivest, Shamir and Adelson come in. They made an algorithm, a system of key exchange, that is asymmetric. It doesn’t involve transporting any secret information.1 That’s been in use for years.”

“What has that got to do with me- oh. Oh. The homework from Science Camp.”

“Yes, Mikey. The homework. You didn’t know it then, but it was a set of problems impossible to solve. To be precise, a regular PC would take 240 trillion years over each one.”

“Oh,” said Mikey.

After that they stared at each other for a long time.

“How did you do it, Mikey?” Regev said. “How? Will you tell us?”

“I will have to,” Mikey said quietly. “Otherwise other people will make me tell and they will use it to hurt people.”

“Bravo,” said Regev, smiling broadly. “You are a very mature young man, Mikey Abram. Feel free to roam the corridor – there are plenty of empty offices you can use. Try to figure out what you did to break it. I’ll send someone to check up on you soon.”

And Regev, psychologist and master of pathological deception, strode away, leaving the door to the padded room unlocked.

He strolled to one end of the corridor, locked the door, then went to the other end. Locked it behind him.

Mikey was still trapped. He just didn’t know it yet.

On his way back to the third-floor conference room, he met Emerson.

“Everything alright?” Emerson asked politely.

“Yeah. Left him to crack it again – he probably doesn’t have his old working out…” Regev trailed off.

“You know, you should mention that to Amelie. Can’t afford to have some invaluable papers drifting around a civilian family home, can we? Nobody wants the Abrams to be targeted.”

“I thought of that,” Regev admitted. “But – how do I say this? Your Amelie doesn’t give off the impression of a commander who enjoys hearing suggestions.”

“Give it a try, Regev. You might not represent a FVEY nation, but you’re part of the team. Best act like a team player.”

Regev nodded. They exchanged goodbyes like polite strangers and Emerson hurried off to the locked corridor.

Back in the padded room, Mikey still had not moved. His limbs felt heavy despite the painkiller.

What have I done, he moaned to himself. Two hundred and forty million years’ worth of computing power! What have I done?