The arrival of new weapons has often been followed closely by their use against civilian populations for strategic effects. Submarines, bombers, rockets; The Lusitania, Dresden, London. This 20th-century history portends that the emerging capabilities of the 21st century—cyber attacks, information warfare—will be similarly used against civilian targets. The challenge will be all the greater as extreme weather becomes more common. This month’s Fictional Intelligence narrative, set in the late 2030s, explores how adversaries could exploit the combination to raise existential questions about political, military, and societal resiliency.
An empty bar is a terrible thing to waste.
Tomec took in the Loui Bar at Steigenberger Icon Wiltcher’s grand hotel in Brussels and set himself in a plush leather club chair. The young sergeant in Poland’s JW FORMOZA naval commando unit was a large man, meaning he found most chairs uncomfortable. And he enjoyed his quiet, now more than ever. It was half an hour before a driver would pick him up, but he wanted to be sure not to miss them.
His military service had taken him to three continents, but he had never been to NATO’s headquarters, let alone imagined he would go for an awards ceremony, albeit a discreet one held after hours. He assumed it was a hushed matter due to the sensitivity of his wartime missions. The war had been officially over for four months, but a great deal of it remained clouded. With so much disinformation and outright damage to computer systems and cloud networks, people were still trying to piece together what had happened.
Tomec took a sip from his highball glass, careful not to get the cocktail’s muddled basil on his chin. He pulled out a paperback novel he had picked up at the airport, no longer trusting his old digital book reader after all the hacks. But as he tried to lose himself in the story, he found his solitude disturbed by a man and a woman entering the bar.
The woman was taller than Tomec’s nearly two meters; her black suit contrasted with her short platinum-and-purple-streaked hair. The man, shorter and bald, wore a loose-fitting gray suit, a white shirt, and a squadron tie in maroon polyester.
Tomac’s hearing wasn’t as good as it had been before the war, so it was hard to make out what they were saying on the other side of the room. But it was just loud enough to break the silence he had so welcomed. Then they collected their drinks, looked around at him, and walked over. The pair seemed entirely comfortable, which put him on edge. He put his book down, ran a hand through his thick brown hair, and started to stand.
The woman motioned for him to sit and did so herself, in a plush chair that faced his.
“You have good taste,” she said, in what Tomac took for a Dutch accent. “The bartender said we’re having what you’re having.”
“Gin Basil Smash,” Tomec said.
“Exactly. Less bevvy, more salad,” said the man, who spoke with a carefully neutral British accent. He was bald and significantly shorter than the woman. He wore a loose-fitting gray suit, a white shirt, and a polyester maroon squadron tie.
“I’m Aniek, and this is Wing Commander James Crick, 617 Squadron RAF,” the woman said. “You’re Sgt. Tomec Majka, Polish Navy special forces? We’re going with you to the awards ceremony.”
She pulled out her phone and showed Tomec a message from the staff officer who was coordinating the ceremony and reception.
“Bona fides,” said the man, offering a white-toothed grin. “Call me Jim.”
The bartender brought their drinks over and set them down on the low table between them, carefully placing a coaster with the hotel’s “W” logo oriented vertically in front of each.
“And this is Aniek Rasmussen of the Dutch Joint Sigint Cyber Unit, the real star of the show,” James said, toasting her with his glass.
“Not so much,” said Aniek. “I sat at my desk during the entire war.”
James and Aniek each took a sip. Tomec leaned back in his chair.
“Delicious,” James said. “How quickly we can take for granted something like a bunch of fresh basil and proper tonic water.” Tomec thought he sounded like a BBC announcer from the last world war.
“What kind of aircraft do you fly?” Tomec asked.
“F-35Bs,” James said. “Always thought when we went to war, I’d be doing close-air support or battling other 5th-gen fighters. Instead, they had us sucking up electronic emissions to track those sub-swarm motherships. That’s why I’m here. Led a few of those missions, made it back. Seemed to be enough.” He took a longer sip. “How about you?”
Tomec sighed. Sometimes what appeared simple was far more complicated to say. He was being decorated for defending the fiber-optic cable taps that ran through the Baltic Sea. A microsecond advantage in transmission time had produced a vital edge for NATO’s artificial intelligence-driven campaign. Some of the war’s most important battles had been fought hand-to-hand in the icy waters above glass threads carrying petabytes of data across the bottom of the sea. Gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc, he thought, the place where the devil says goodnight.
“Badly paid undersea fiber-optic cable technician,” Tomec said.
Aniek laughed softly and started fiddling with her phone.
“How about you, Major?” Tomec asked.
“Cyber defense,” said Aniek. “Civilian infrastructure, mostly.”
“You remember the heat disaster last summer?” said James.
“Of course. We joked that seafloor was only cool place,” said Tomec.
“Yes, we should have wargamed not just what climate change would do to our weather, but how an enemy would take advantage of it. A cyberattack taking advantage of a heat wave. Diabolical,” said James. “Not just the power grid, but the aircon systems for care homes and hospitals and schools, let alone our MoD and government facilities.”
Tomec thought back to a video call with his parents that August. It was 41 degrees Celsius in Krakow. They had been panting and red-faced like they were running for their lives, and yet they were just sitting in their small apartment’s living room, gasping out wishes that he would stay safe.
Aniek put her phone down and leaned forward. “It was more than just hacking, like all good operations,” she said. “We were subjected to an info-op campaign during the heat wave. They wanted to cause societal unrest, if not collapse.”
“People get angry at everyone when it’s too hot,” said James, fishing an ice cube from his glass.
“What did you do?” Tomec asked.
“We had lots of meetings,” said Aniek.
Tomec looked at her dubiously, as if she was also trying to keep her operation secret.
“Really, we did,” she said, with a smile. “We coordinated with private-sector companies and public institutions and allied intelligence agencies and hacker collectives. We shared data on everything. Absolutely everything, from incoming threats to best practices. We sent teams of experts to work on-site at targeted networks.
“That was our advantage in the end. The enemy had to keep their operations behind the veil, while we could pool all our information, ideas, and resources—as long as we broke down the bureaucratic and organizational culture barriers. And there is nothing like a good crisis to force that.”
“Well, however boring you want to paint what you did, if the attack had gone on a few more days, I’m pretty certain the alliance would have collapsed,” said James. “A toast, then, to the real hero of the war.”
Tomec nodded in agreement and lifted his glass in salute.
Aniek smiled in thanks, evidently embarrassed at the praise.
The Polish sergeant took a sip, rattling the ice in his glass, savoring the cool drink. It was true what James had said about how quickly we could take things for granted. Even something as simple as ice in a glass.
“Another round?” he said. “I think we have time.”
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