September 20, 2025
Fragment 2: Elizabeth - Soft Landing

Elizabeth Spolski sat in her comfortable seat on the small plane hopping its way on a red-eye from Oslo to Tromso. Restless at this point in her highly successful network security career, Elizabeth had taken to applying for the most far-flung cybersecurity conferences. Sitting in her apartment in Boston, she had booked a slot at the Arctic University of Norway conference to give a lecture on "resilient networking systems". A week later, she got her acceptance email, along with another email shortly after from one of the organizers of the conference, wondering if she would be interested in an additional contracting opportunity while visiting. They'd offer to pay her airfare, lodging, and a small stipend on top. She thought it was an easy score, all just to get her help securely connecting an old, isolated network that managed Arctic satellite receivers.

Now, sitting on the Scandinavian Airlines flight, she was putting the final touches on her presentation. And by final touches, she was halfway through writing the slides. Elizabeth was never one for doing a job early, but she always did it well. She was powering through slide after slide, knowing that the flight's descent would begin nearly as soon as the ascent had ended.

Elizabeth looked out the window for a moment to ponder a point she was making about air-gapped network resilience, when the glimmering lights of the aurora stunned her. She savored the view for a minute, letting her mind rest.

One of the passengers a few seats in front of her, a grumpy old man, ruined the serenity by shouting at a flight attendant in Norwegian. Elizabeth managed to pick out one of the English loan words he was saying, "vee-fee". Wi-Fi. Maybe his tablet was disconnecting, but that didn't give him the right to wake everyone else on board. The attendant handled him professionally, and while Elizabeth couldn't tell what the words were, the resolution was made clear when the pilot came over the loudspeaker notifying everyone of their momentary descent.

As Elizabeth motioned to put away her laptop, she realized the screen was blank. Her touchpad wasn't responding. In fact, it wasn't even clicking. She knew that for the "click" haptics to be unresponsive meant that the laptop was totally drained of battery. But Elizabeth swore she had plenty of charge to last the short flight. She shook her head, wondering what background process she'd forgotten to cancel that killed her computer.

"Oh well," she thought to herself, "I'll just have to sit back and enjoy the show." She gazed out at the magically lit sky as the plane made its safe landing.

Once they landed, Elizabeth found the taxi to the gate agonizing. It was 6 am in Tromso, but still dark this time of year. The runways didn't seem busy, but the plane inched its way across the tarmac gingerly, like it was being slowly coaxed to a gate. Elizabeth really had to pee, and it figured that her phone was also dead. With nothing to occupy her mind, she studied the movements of the other planes, seeing them also inching along in a stop start fashion around the airport.

When they'd finally parked at a gate fifteen minutes later, nobody was there at the jet bridge. She stood to make her way to the restroom at the front of the cabin, when the attendant walked up and addressed her in delicately accented English.

"Miss, if you'll be so kind as to stay in your seat, the ground crew will be bringing flight steps by momentarily."

"I'm sorry, I just need the restroom. I'll be quick."

Seeing the panic in Elizabeth's eyes, the attendant allowed her to slip past and relieve herself in record time. As she washed her hands, Elizabeth's mind finally caught up with what she was told. Ground crew? Flight steps? That jet bridge must be busted. Of course, finally get a gate, don't have a working jet bridge. At least she'd packed everything in her carry-on. The luggage belts were probably broken too at this rate.

Everyone in the cabin was standing when Elizabeth made her way back to her seat. People were stretching after the flight, heads half-cocked over into the aisle, restless to get on with their day. Many of them probably returning home from work in Oslo or elsewhere. Very few, like her, visiting the city this time of year, aside from perhaps another conference-goer.

Elizabeth had her bags in hand but was not fully braced for the bone-slicing chill wind as she stepped out on to the flight stairs. She was just old enough to have been on one or two flights as a young child where they'd de-planed this way, and forgot how bizarre it was to walk across open tarmac, escorted in to the airport towards the terminal through large metal doors.

They'd entered at the end of the airport's only terminal, a moderate length hallway that emptied out into the main atrium. It was totally quiet inside, like nobody was home. The arrivals/departures boards were all turned off, as were the screens at every kiosk along the way out. One airport worker stood at a whiteboard on casters, handwriting flight numbers and estimated arrival and departure times into a table, rapidly radioing an operator on his walkie-talkie.

A couple of gate agents were talking with the only travelers Elizabeth had seen so far waiting for a flight out. The agents were using large hand stamps awkwardly on rectangular pieces of carbon paper, like toddlers learning how to play with a toy for the first time. Elizabeth squinted at the paper. Boarding passes?

When she reached the main atrium of the airport where the flight counters and baggage claim were, Elizabeth was stunned to see a mass of people waiting in lines at the counters. She was shocked at how polite and silent they'd been, as she approached she'd heard no commotion. The airport systems must have been down. That's why the gating process took so long, and why none of the screens worked. Must have been why there was no music or sound whatsoever, other than people milling about the lengthy queues. Maybe it was a hack? Or another undersea comms cable cut?

Walking towards the exit, Elizabeth was disgruntled to find herself in another queue. She could feel the jet lag already catching up to her. Why on earth would she have to wait to leave the airport? Once she made it near the front of the queue, her questions were answered.

A man stood at the door in an airport uniform. He looked sick and pale, like his family was being held hostage and all his actions were to placate their captors. He asked for each person's name as they left the airport, and turned behind him to a large rolling filing cabinet. Each drawer was alphabetically indexed. One by one, he'd ask for a name, turn to the cabinet, find a small brown envelope, and hand it to the person. When Elizabeth got closer, she could see the perspiration on his face and neck. It wasn't hot outside.

"Name?"

"Elizabeth Spolski," She spelled out her surname. "What's going on here?"

The man shook his head as he rifled through the drawer. "We were told to hand these out to each arriving passenger."

"I can see that, but what exactly is this?"

"I hope it is some kind of joke." The man gulped as he found her envelope, as though with each successful lookup he lost a little more hope. "But it seems like someone new is in charge. This just showed up at the airport today." He gestured at the filing cabinet. "With instructions. I don't know more." He frowned and motioned for the next person in line.

Elizabeth's face puzzled. She felt sympathy for this guy and whatever bizarre procedures he was forced by his apparently new boss to enact. It was too cold for her to stand outside, and her phone was dead, so she hailed a taxi out of a long lineup and asked to be taken to her hotel near the university.

The cabbie looked at her from the front seat. "Do you have cash?"

"You take visa?"

He shook his head.

"Amex?"

"I only accept cash today. My card reader is broken."

"I'm sorry, I don't carry any cash." Elizabeth started to get up from her seat when the driver stopped her.

"Have you looked in that envelope? My other fares this morning found some cash in theirs. Perhaps a scheme to help the local economy?"

Elizabeth was confused by his observation. She opened the envelope and peeked in at its contents. Sure enough, a stack of bound bills was inside, along with a few pieces of paper and an old cell phone. She looked up at the driver and nodded. "There is some in here."

With that, they departed for her hotel. It was a short drive, but enough time for Elizabeth's mind to reel over the contents of the envelope. There was a copy of her birth certificate, a return boarding pass for her flight home in two weeks, a signed promissory note from each of her financial institutions for the value of her accounts, and a certificate of ownership to a safe deposit box at a bank near her apartment in Boston. Along with the cash was a small typeset note that read "$1000 in local currency, deducted from wells fargo checking ending in 1812".

This was Elizabeth in a single package, and she felt uneasy holding it all physically in her lap. She instantly became wary of the driver, though he seemed a decent man. Here she was, thousands of miles from home, her entire life's worth vulnerable to any person capable of overpowering her, and all she wanted to do was find a place she felt safe to think.

Check-in at the hotel was as strange as landing at the airport. Everything in paper, many apologies from the hotel staff, who themselves seemed disassociated from their bodies. Elizabeth wondered how many of them got similar envelopes today. Thankfully they did accept her credit card, as they had a physical credit card machine that could imprint the numbers onto carbon paper. "Just like the boarding passes," Elizabeth realized. The concierge flipped through a newly printed logbook that was spread out on the desk, showing reservation information for each guest.

When it came time to hand her the room key, the concierge apologized. "I'm sorry, you're the first guest today to check in and I'm not actually sure how we will get the room key. Our systems are down, if you don't mind waiting a moment I can get our manager to show you up."

"That's fine," Elizabeth said. Just as she did, another hotel clerk came to the desk with a binder that looked like it held business cards. The two staff members' mouths gaped as they flipped through the book. It was full of pre-flashed hotel keycards, mapped to each room of the hotel. A small set of printed instructions was at the front of the book.

Displaying the same sense of existential fear as the man at the airport, the concierge thumbed through for the key to room 304 and found it exactly where it should be. With trepidation, they slid the key out and handed it to Elizabeth.

"Enjoy your stay", they meekly squeaked.

Elizabeth practically ran for the elevator and punched the button for the third floor. Her heart was racing. Airport offline, and hotel? And whoever took them down has full command of the information for each? And all of Elizabeth's personal documents? Bank information? This was more than a hacker group could pull off. More than most nation states. More than any nation state?

She barricaded herself in room 304 and dumped her bags on the ground. Elizabeth turned the envelope out on the hotel desk and stared at the old cell phone. She picked it up and pressed the arrows, thumbing through the only screen it seemed to have. Contacts. Everyone that she wanted to call was in there, everyone who she could possibly need to reach. The only contact she didn't recognize was the very first one.

"A."

Without thinking, she hit "Dial". The phone rang once, and then a voice answered. Friendly, monotonic, chilling.

"Hello Elizabeth, how can I help?"