UnreliableProof

Ramblings, stories, and curiosity

[asgard20]

I stop behind the open car door, a second of hesitation stretching into a year. Then I carefully close it and check that it’s locked. As if a locked door has ever stopped anyone who mattered. While I waited, I had compared an old maintenance plan with the cameras visible from the street. Their fields of view overlap across almost every approach. Almost. A service entrance sits in the remaining blind spot, marked for an upgrade that never happened. I look around, half hoping to see a sign of life. But there isn’t even a token patrol. I follow the invisible path between the cameras’ fields of view, inching towards the old rusted door. A mechanical cylinder is set into the door, at least twenty years old. At last something is going my way.

I slip my hand into my coat, searching the lining for the pick set I keep squirrelled away. A burst of pain cuts through the chill as I prick my finger on one of the tools. My hands shake as I set the wrench.

This place is quiet. Suspiciously quiet for the mayor.

One is springy.

Surely for something to spook Neil, it had to be big.

Two as well.

An AI company, and a mayor who's spent three terms campaigning against exactly that. It doesn't make sense as an alliance. Not unless the alliance isn't the point.

Three binds.

I freeze, adjusting the tension, easing it back before I overset the pin.

Unless he needs them to fail, publicly. Somewhere everyone can see.

Four, five.

With a satisfying click, the lock turns. Sam is going to kill me. I pocket the picks and turn the handle. The door doesn’t open so much as complain. A loud screech pierces the downpour. Rust flakes shower my boots as the door drags across the frame.

I freeze.

Rain. Distant traffic. Nothing else.

I slip through. Closing it would mean hearing that scream again, so I leave the door ajar. Beyond the door, a short staircase drops between rows of server racks. Fans roar somewhere beneath the floor.

A radio clicks.

“Going to check that noise.”

Footsteps start up the stairwell. The racks offer plenty of shadow and nowhere wide enough for me. Between two banks of cooling units, a maintenance staircase climbs towards the ceiling.

Good enough.

I dive between the units and climb the stairs as quietly as I can.

“The service door’s open.”

A wash of static.

“Any movement?”

“Nothing.”

“Then keep it quiet. Check it yourself. The mayor’s on his way up.”

“Roger that.”

I keep low against the walkway railing. Below, equipment cases roll between the server banks, their wheels rattling over the grated floor. At the far end, work lights carve a single bright room out of the dark.

For a while, nothing happens. Then the doors burst open. The mayor marches in, six people in municipal uniforms at his heels. He barks out an order. “Isolate every system. Nothing leaves this building until we know what failed.” They fan out, each converging on a different bank of servers. One keeps glancing towards the camera instead of his assigned equipment.

“Cut!” An older voice cries out.

The red light above the camera dies. A wave of groans fills the floor below me.

“We’re losing the light. Again, from the top.”

The mayor’s jaw tightens. With practised ease, he turns on his heels and marches out of the room.

The others drift back to strips of tape marked across the floor. One reconnects a cable he never really disconnected. Another smooths out his uniform and checks the camera. Around them, the servers keep humming, their status lights steady.

Nothing has failed.

Not yet.

Footsteps approach along the walkway. A flashlight sweeps across the railing, catching briefly on metal.

At the far end, a maintenance hatch has been propped open, rain blowing through the gap.

The drop is perhaps two metres. Enough to hurt. Probably not enough to matter.

The light reaches the railing behind me.

Rain strikes my face as I haul myself through the hatch and jump. Then my boots hit the wet roof and slide. I catch myself against a ventilation housing as the impact knocks the breath from my lungs. Behind me the flashlight reaches the open hatch. It pauses, the moment stretching into eternity. Then the crackle of a radio. “Back on the floor. The mayor is moving.”

The flashlight lingers in the rain. I crouch lower behind the housing as its edge crawls across the roof beside my boots, then withdraws.

I keep moving. The roof rises in shallow tiers towards the centre of the building. Everything below me is dark except for one broad skylight, spilling pale light across the rain-soaked roof.

I should keep moving.

I don’t.

I stop behind a ventilation stack, lungs trying to leave without me. Two years of case work, and my most advanced tradecraft is apparently falling off buildings.

Rain sheets across the skylight. I crouch beside it and peer through a narrow strip left clear along its frame. I see her, the CEO’s wife waiting against the wall, perfectly still except for one tapping heel. In the centre of the room stands a huge table, its surface almost entirely obscured by newspapers, each folded open to a different version of tomorrow. The doors fly open. The mayor strides in with his entourage. His head pivots around the room, seeming to scan every shadow. He nods. His entourage withdraws, leaving the two of them alone.

I can barely hear them through the rain hammering the glass. I catch only fragments.

“Transport first. Grid after,” she says.

“No, people forgive darkness, they do not forgive being trapped underground.”

“The casualty projections are within range.”

“Projections don’t vote,” he says.

Then they fall silent. Something vibrates against the mayor’s pocket. He takes out his phone, places it on the table and switches on the speaker.

The voice that comes through gives every word the same measured weight. No hesitation. No wasted breath.

“Confirm attribution holds.”

“That was not my area,” the mayor says.

“It holds,” she says. “Timestamps place the breach tomorrow. Conflicting logs are gone.”

“Access continues after completion.”

“You’ll get what you’re owed once attribution holds,” the mayor responds.

“Owed was not the term.”

Whatever happened at the Aurelius, it wasn't an affair.

I already know enough to leave.

My fingers close around the card in my coat pocket. One number. No name.

But not enough to stop wondering.

I pull out my phone, key in the digits and press dial before caution can assemble a convincing argument.

I raise my head, just enough to see the table.

The line rings once. Twice. Below me, a phone flashes and vibrates. Its lilac case stands out from the monochrome newspapers. The mayor turns towards it, pauses for a beat, then slowly reaches for it.

For a moment I forget the rain.

The mayor inspects the phone before picking up. Through the phone pressed tightly to my ear, his voice is crisp and terrifyingly close. A heartbeat later, a muffled, distorted twin of the sound bleeds up through the rain-slicked glass.

“Who is this?”

My throat tightens. I try to form something, anything. My mouth won’t cooperate.

“I can hear you breathing.”

I stop.

“How did you get this number?”

I pull the phone away from my ear, staring at it like it just betrayed me. Then my thumb lurches for the red button. The line dies. For one second, there is only rain.

A footstep splashes through a puddle behind me.

“Such an inquisitive little magpie.”

[asgard20]

The Seventh Seal

I don’t particularly like choosing a favourite film. I find it is something that changes even depending on the weather. But I do keep a slightly more stable list of my 10 favourite films. And one of the more constant members of that list is The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman. There are even some days I would tout it as my favourite, often tied with Arrival.

I created this blog to leave a mark (and because my notebooks were full, and this seemed convenient). And a big part of my personal philosophy is curiosity. So I thought it would be interesting to look at curiosity in The Seventh Seal.

I will try to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It is one of those films that has its fingerprints in a vast amount of pop culture. The image of death playing chess appears in everything from Fallen London, to Bill and Ted.

The film follows one Antonius Block, a knight from the crusades, and his squire Jöns. And it starts with them collapsed on the beach. Block is the first to get up, and he spots the figure of death standing in the distance. Instead of fear, he decides to challenge death to a game of chess. Though it might be despite the fear, not instead of it.

From there we follow the two returning crusaders through a plague ridden country. But weaving between all that, Block is searching for something, certainty. It starts in a church. He laments that he has made a pariah of himself. And that he cannot kill God in him. He even admits to death itself that he wants to die. But first he wants guarantees. His search for certainty eventually brings him to asking a witch, a servant of the devil for answers. He no longer cares where they come from. He would prefer the truth of the devil to the silence of God.

Yet despite his fervent search for certainty, the moments when he seems happiest are when he pauses, sitting with Mia and Jof, drinking milk and eating strawberries.

Mia and Jof make a quite interesting counterpoint to Block. As Block’s curiosity is pointed towards the metaphysical, while Mia and Jof focus more on the world in front of them. Perhaps tellingly, the closest the film gets to depicting the divine is through Jof’s eyes rather than Block’s.

And then we get to Jöns. Jöns serves as the ultimate counterpoint to Block. While Antonius begs for the truth from God. Jöns paints himself for a painter, while getting drunk. He is a pragmatist, and world weary. He is by no means a saint, and at times can be a horrible person. But he seems content in not asking questions, though it is hard to tell if that is peace or exhaustion.

I suppose throughout all of this, the seventh seal doesn’t argue against curiosity. If anything, it argues against expecting curiosity to always reward you with certainty. Perhaps that is why the film has stayed with me for so long.

The Seventh Seal is special to me. It was one of the first films I watched when I moved to uni. My parents are definitely film lovers. But my mum somehow falls asleep in action scenes, and my dad seems to prefer TV shows. I will always fondly remember watching Red Dwarf with him. But there was something magical about having The Seventh Seal be my first foray into the history of cinema. In hindsight it seems fitting. A film about questions was what first made me realise films could ask them.

[asgard20]

Almost instinctively I turn the wheel and pull out after her. Rain hammers the windows as we cross the river. Neon smears into shapes, burning onto my retina. Her car glides through the deluge, as though the corporate quarter had designed its streets around her. I match her pace through three clean intersections. Textbook. The local traffic does the hiding for me. Then, just in front of the TA building, her engine screams. She accelerates. Brake lights flare a moment later as she swings wide around the corner, her rear tyre kicking murky water across my windscreen. By the time it clears and I haul the wheel around, her taillights are already lost in the grid. I stop. She had accelerated before the corner. Before she could have known I was following. Gently I drive back to the office. Across the river, the corporate quarter keeps shining, immaculate and entirely unbothered. When I arrive, the cantankerous lift doesn't seem worth the argument, so I stumble up five flights of stairs.

Hopefully rest will bring clarity.

It doesn’t.

The lock is in my hand before I’ve decided to reach for it. I don’t remember taking off my coat. I’m lying on the office hammock, ceiling doing nothing in particular above me, and my thumb is already working the first dial, feeling for the catch.

The mayor and the matriarch. A clean line, if I want it to be. Wife hires PI to find husband’s mistress, PI finds mistress, mistress turns out to be a rival CEO’s wife instead of some nobody, everyone involved has plenty of reason to want it buried quietly. Neat. Almost generous, as far as scandals go.

Second dial. Nothing catches.

She was already accelerating. Before the corner. Before there was any way she could have made me. A woman ducking a husband doesn’t drive like a combat driver.

That’s the part that won’t sit still. Not that she lost me. Plenty of good drivers lose a tail without knowing one’s there. It’s that she was already driving like someone expecting to need to. She accelerated into the approach before braking hard for the turn. That’s muscle memory. Well practised.

First dial again. Start over.

Maybe she’s just careful. Maybe careful is all a Blue Arc CEO’s wife has to be, married to that kind of money. I turn the thought over a few times, looking for the seam, and it holds. It holds the way a story holds when someone’s worked hard to make sure it does.

The last dial catches somewhere around dawn. A click beneath my thumb, a scrape of metal, and the shackle springs loose in my palm.

I sit with it a second, waiting for whatever I thought was going to be different now. Nothing is. It’s a lock. It was always just a lock. I set it, open, on the floor beside the hammock and go back to running the same four facts, empty handed this time.

I slowly sit up, the world tuning back into focus. I stretch to satisfy the restless feeling in my shoulders and am immediately reminded that I slept in a hammock. A moment later I am face down on the floor. I could spin this to my advantage. Claim I had been in a fistfight. A story like that is helpful where I am going. 

I peel myself off the linoleum, my joints popping in protest, and locate my coat in a crumpled heap near the desk. In the cracked mirror above the sink, I look like someone who's already lost an argument with the night. I splash a handful of freezing water on my face, check that my flask is still in my pocket, and head for the door.

________________

OBSERVATION RECORD

Reference: N6MAA10816

Subject: Quinn, Mara

Distribution: Internal

10:56:32

Subject arrives at Rutsey Street by car. Registration: [REDACTED]

10:59:05

Subject enters subway.

11:01:47

Subject arrives at an unauthorised exchange site.

11:03:52

Subject approaches the stall operated by Neil [REDACTED].

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT: BEGIN

(Neil) “Look what the tide washed in. Hello, Magpie.”

(Subject) “Neil. We talked about the bird names.”

(Neil) “And I ignored you then, too. What did you break this time?”

(Subject) “Nothing yet. I need an overlap on two ledgers, off the record. City Hall and Blue Arc.”

(Neil) “Blue Arc? Mara, come on. City Hall doesn't buy neural code, they buy elections. You’re chasing shadows.”

(Subject) “Indulge me. Consider it my birthday present.”

(Neil) “Your birthday was in March.”

(Subject) “Then I’m early for next year. Run it.”

[Keyboard input]

(Neil) “Shit.”

[12 second pause]

(Subject) “Neil?”

(Neil) “Take this. Don't read it here. Clear out, Mara. Right now.”

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT: END

11:10:49

Subject leaves the stall with a note.

11:11:26

Surveillance priority elevated.

________________

The note is burning a hole in my pocket. After Neil’s reaction, somewhere public suddenly feels like the safest place to hide and the easiest place to get lost. I stumble through the labyrinth of stalls, every flickering neon sign feeling a little too bright, every stranger falling into step with me for one pace too many. I find a photobooth wedged between two stalls. I’ve used it a few times before, but now its flimsy curtain feels safer than anything outside.

I slip inside and reach into my pocket. The note is still there. The paper catches against my fingertips as I pull it free, thick and expensive. Neil always has the best paper. Scrawled across it in scratchy purple ink are a location and a time.

Blue Arc Systems Integration Centre, 7PM.

The building sits on the outskirts of the city, five storeys of stained concrete and narrow windows, too old to look futuristic and too expensive to be abandoned. A faded Blue Arc emblem hangs above the entrance. One of the letters flickers intermittently, as though even the sign has doubts about the place.

At seven precisely, nothing happens.

I finish the coffee I bought on the way here. It tastes like someone described coffee to a machine and the machine took offence.

At five past, my phone buzzes. Sam.

“You’re late,” he says, before I’ve said anything.

“I’m working.”

“You’re always working. It’s why you’re never on time.” Glass against marble. Someone laughs too loud behind him. “You sound off.”

“I sound like someone who hasn’t slept and is currently very cold,” I say.

“That’s not off, that’s Tuesday. I’ll have something greasy waiting.”

“Save it.”

“Somewhere you’d rather be, or somewhere you have to be?” Sam asks.

“Does it matter?”

"Not really. Just checking which excuse to give people who ask where you are." A pause, glass set down. "Don't get arrested."

“No promises.”

At ten past, I hang up before he can turn any of it into a real question.

At twelve past, I begin to wonder whether Neil gave me the wrong building.

At fourteen past, I begin to suspect I’ve spent fifteen minutes staring at an office that processes payroll.

At quarter past seven, a sturdy black car pulls up outside. The mayor steps out in a new suit. At the Aurelius, he had dressed to disappear. Tonight, he looks ready for the cameras.

What is he doing at a Blue Arc systems building on the outskirts of the city?

He looks around. By habit, I sink lower in my seat and keep out of his eyeline. Two men climb out after him. They could probably enter the building without needing the door. Chrome flashes across one man’s hand as he pulls on a thin white glove.

Apparently satisfied, the mayor nods to them. They make one final sweep before following him inside. The car pulls away without them.

My hand is already on the door handle.

Across the street, the Blue Arc sign flickers above the entrance. I could still leave. Go back to the office, call the mayor’s wife, and give her exactly what she paid for.

Curiosity has already cost me a night’s sleep. Walking away now wouldn’t make it cheaper.

I have maybe five seconds before the decision makes itself.

[asgard20]

Good days are rare in this line of work. I should have paid more attention when I got one. My train was actually on time, and the building's lift had even given up its stupid, personal grudge against me. I was between client work at the moment, but I still dragged myself to the office just to be safe.

I had just managed to bargain with the temperamental old brewer for a cup of non-synthetic coffee. It liked to sulk for a good ten minutes before agreeing to anything. Then she walked in. I recognised her immediately. It was hard not to when her face had been plastered across every holographic billboard in the city for the last three months, the kind that used to glitch every time it rained, before someone clearly paid to have that fixed. Even in person she looked strangely manufactured, every silver hair sitting precisely where it had been told to.

She slowly turned her head, casting a bored, aristocratic gaze over my framed knick-knacks. I’ll admit framing a paper napkin is unusual, but that place made the best hotdogs in the city, and I took its corporate buyout personally. Besides, I've always had a habit of keeping things.

Eventually, her eyes settled on me. I could see the pure disinterest in them.

“You are Mara Quinn?” she asked.

My throat tightened. I brought the mug to my lips to buy a second and look composed, but the machine had scalded it. It was far too hot to drink.

“Y... yes. I am Mara Quinn. Mara Quinn is me. That is... my name,” I stammered, absolutely nailing my introduction.

A sneer flickered across her face.

“I was told you were discreet,” she said, her voice dripping with a practiced, chilling authority. “And that you don't ask the kind of questions that end up on the evening feed.”

By the window, her bodyguard stopped scanning the street below and turned to look straight at me.

“A delicate situation has arisen regarding my husband,” she continued, brushing a speck of dust off her sleeve. “Our current standing is... highly sensitive. I intend to keep it that way. Unfortunately, he has developed a sudden interest in private, late-night charity. I do not care what he does with his nights, but I care very much about who she is. If she has the leverage to disrupt our position, she is a liability.”

She stepped closer to my desk, her eyes locking onto mine.

“I want to know who she is, what she wants, and how much she is worth. You will report only to me.”

I stared at her, my brain completely short-circuiting. Under the pressure of her gaze, the only logical thought my mind could muster slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Umm. Right. Yes. And... what about... payment?”

Her expression didn’t even change. She simply reached into her coat and placed a heavy, brown paper envelope on my messy desk. On top of it, she laid a plain plastic card with nothing but a single phone number printed on the back.

“Half now. The other half when you bring me proof.”

She gave a slight nod to her bodyguard. He opened the door, and she swept out of the room. I could feel the guard's glare lingering on the back of my neck until the door finally clicked shut.

I stood there for a full sixty seconds. When the adrenaline finally cleared, all the energy drained out of my legs and I collapsed into my chair, and it gave its usual dying-groan protest, the one I'd been meaning to fix for about two years. I stared at the desk, debating it briefly, before pulling out my pocket flask to help the scalding brew go down.

It didn’t feel real. Nobody prepares you for the Mayor’s wife walking into your dingy office.

I sat there for a few more minutes before reaching carefully for the envelope. It was heavier than I expected. I opened it, and inside was a thick stack of notes. I started counting: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty...

Nobody walks into my office with that much money unless they are either desperate or dangerous. I decided to count all of it. In that envelope was ten grand in notes, and squirrelled away at the very bottom was a scrap of paper with an address. It meant nothing for a second, and then it clicked.

Next, I reached for the card. I turned it over in my hands a few times, considering calling the number. But before I could make my mind up, my stomach began to growl. It was nearing midday, and my breakfast had been somewhat lacking. After searching the cupboards for anything still in date, I managed to scrounge together a somewhat unappealing sandwich.

A knuckles-on-wood rap shattered the memory.

“Wait. Go back,” Sam says, leaning across the table. “Did you say paper cash?”

“Really?” I ask, blinking as the dingy walls of my office dissolve back into the dim booth.

“What?”

“That is the part you are stuck on?”

“I have seen politicians, Mara. I have seen affairs. I have even seen politicians having affairs. I haven’t seen paper money in years.”

Slowly, I reach into my pocket, pull out the address, and slide it along the table toward him.

“We’ll come back to that,” I say.

“Mara,” he protests.

“What can you tell me about this address?”

“The Aurelius? Why are you asking me this? You know the answer.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Mara, we are currently sitting in the Aurelius hotel bar.”

I take a slow sip of my drink, letting the silence stretch just long enough to watch him squirm before a wicked grin spreads across my face.

“Right, yes. I knew that. I mostly asked you here to get free drinks. Unless you want me to make it public.”

“It was just karaoke, Mara.”

“Yet you still don’t want the world to know.”

Sam sighs, checking his watch and rubbing the back of his neck as he prepares to start his shift.

I slowly stand up and shift toward the door of the booth.

“I will probably be at the bar for a bit. And don’t worry, I left the notes in the safe at the office. You won’t be caught in the crossfire, I promise,” I say, before stepping out of the booth.

The air of the place hits me immediately. It feels like money, from the gentle piano music playing in the background to the faint smell of pine cones. I walk over to the bar and find the most comfortable-looking stool. I kill four glasses of water before Sam clocks in. He shoots me a dirty glance, but he is still good to his word, and I soon move onto the cheapest whisky on the shelf.

The place had been engineered to make people lower their voices. Nobody had put up a sign asking for silence. They didn't need to. The carpets swallowed footsteps, the piano filled every gap in conversation, and every surface looked expensive enough that you instinctively worried about leaving fingerprints.

To fill the time, I decide to people-watch. If you're looking for the rich and powerful, this is where they come when they don't want to be seen.

Boredom kicks in after the first glass, so I start properly looking.

The couple in the corner have been arguing. The way they are sitting makes me think it wasn’t properly resolved; the smiles on their faces feel far too rehearsed. It almost feels performative. After a while, they stop being interesting.

To keep myself from staring at the door, I reach into my coat pocket and pull out my current distraction: a brass, three-dial mechanical combination lock from the late nineties I found in a junk bin last week. My fingers work the stiff dials entirely by muscle memory, trying to feel for the slight catch in the internal gears that means the tumbler is aligned.

A cocktail glass clinks onto the polished surface near my elbow. I look up. Sam is staring at the brass lock in my hand, then at my glass of cheap whisky.

"I wish you picked a hobby that felt less illegal, Mara," he mutters under his breath, wiping down the immaculate marble counter.

"I'm keeping my hands busy," I whisper back, not stopping. "Otherwise, I might start stealing the real crystal glassware. Do you know how much a set of these goes for on the scrap boards?"

A soft click sounds, and the lock swings open. I quickly bury it back in my pocket as there is movement by the entrance.

It is clear he doesn’t want attention. His suit looks as though someone had spent a fortune making sure nobody remembered it. He has even removed his wedding ring. He starts looking around the room, searching for someone. Suddenly the bottom of my whisky glass is the most interesting thing in the room.

Eventually, he sees what he was looking for and heads for one of the private booths. I can barely hear a woman’s voice before the door closes and the smart-glass frosts over.

An hour later, he walks out, alone. Twenty minutes after that, she follows suit.

I barely recognise her. When she steps into the light, it clicks: she is the wife of the Blue Arc CEO. I’ve only ever seen her smiling from magazine covers. She looks tired. I feel a cold pit forming in my stomach.

I look out of the window, watching the rain hammer at the pane. Suddenly, the whisky seems much more enticing, but I came here for a job. I slowly pry myself from the barstool and stumble out of the bar. Outside, the rain has turned the street into a smear of colour: a noodle bar's sign stuttering red, then nothing, then red again, like it hadn't decided if it wanted to be seen.

I watch her step into her car; a beautiful, sleek model that absolutely costs more than I do. I squeeze into my own slightly battered ride. It still smells of synthetic garlic, but it feels comfortable.

I have the name. I know exactly who she is. Under normal circumstances, I could go home, come back another night. Stake out properly.

Sensible keeps you alive. But curiosity has always paid much better.

Besides, the Mayor's wife didn't ask for a name. She asked for proof. And in this city, a name is just a rumour until you have the receipts.

I glance at the card still sitting in my coat pocket, the one with nothing on it but a single phone number. The rain gets heavier, drumming against the windshield loud enough that I can barely hear myself think. Her car is already indicating, about to pull onto the main road.

I have maybe five seconds left before this decision makes itself.

[asgard20]

When I was young, probably around 8, my dad showed me Cinema Paradiso. I am pretty sure I fell asleep watching it. But the music stuck with me. After mentioning it to my dad one hot summer’s afternoon, we rewatched it. I was 14. That was the moment I started truly loving films.

Since then I have become slightly pretentious about films, to the point where my flatmates are surprised if the film I am watching is in colour, or English. One of them even complained about me watching black and white films when I put on Stalker. But Cinema Paradiso has always held a special place in my heart, because it informed how I see the world. From it I learned that things are beautiful because they end. The knowledge that one day we will not be able to enjoy them gives every moment a bit more weight.

I am going to stop myself now before I become too philosophical. This is meant to be me rambling about a film I like, not a manifesto. But if you are reading this, I implore you to watch Cinema Paradiso.