Persephone smiled brightly. It was almost creepy since I’d rarely seen her have that expression. “That’s why I want to trust you with my legacy.”
I paused, suddenly uncomfortable. “Your legacy?”
“The International Refugee Society was a necessary safety valve on the world’s tensions and stress. Its destruction contributed to global chaos, and nature abhors a vacuum. The United States and corporations will attempt to fill that vacuum but will fail. They lack the devotion to order which the head of the Society has to possess.”
“If by order, you mean money,” I said.
Persephone snorted derisively. “Money becomes irrelevant after it hits its eighth digit in terms of pure monetary value. What I wanted was a world that was stable, safe, and secure. The Society was my way of helping guarantee that. Requiring people to deal with us on a mercenary level was just the means of doing it.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, unimpressed. “The International Refugee Society may have been an international player, but it was just a company. A company that sold murder.”
“Every company sells something and their products all interchangeable on paper.” Persephone started to sound more like herself. “You need to rebuild the Society and help it stabilize the world again.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Are you out of your damned mind?”
“Quite possibly,” Persephone said. “I’ve already left seeds with S, but I don’t think she has quite the capacity for the outside-the-box thinking this requires.”
“I’m not an assassin anymore,” I said simply. “I’m going to live the rest of my robot life on a robot beach somewhere having sex with decidedly non-robotic women.”
“You’ll be bored to tears within a week,” Persephone snorted. “You were made to be a killer and are one of the best the world has ever produced.”
“I dunno, I think sex is one of those activities you can do indefinitely if you know what you’re doing,” I said, shrugging. “Which I do. There’s also drinking. I don’t know why that was built into me, but I’m not going to complain about it.”
“Society is going to collapse,” Persephone said, suddenly getting my attention.
“Pardon?” I asked, realizing she was serious.
Persephone looked down. “My husband is a mathematician, Case. He was a game theorist and a fan of chaos theory. Long ago, he wrote an extensive treatise pointing out that as technology rises, so does the instability between the power of the corporate world and government. Between the rich and the poor. Religion used to serve as the balance, but mankind destroyed its authority—perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse—and a pattern of instability resulted. One that will grow ever worse until it explodes.”
“I’m calling bullshit on that entire premise.”
“Two World Wars occurred until the Cold War briefly stabilized global politics. The War on Terror was a failed attempt to divert societal anger, a conflict aided by the Society from behind the scenes to allow power to be manipulated as well as facilitate the suppression of technology. We were only one of a dozen assassin organizations that helped that occur. When the rich no longer require the poor due to technology making up most of the labor pool, chaos is inevitable. It happened before with the Romans, except slaves filled the labor pool and led to the fall of their Empire.”
“Quoting history to me doesn’t make me believe the International Refugee Society was some kind of linchpin that needs to be restored.”
“You’ve seen how the world started to decay once it was no longer active, but it goes beyond that. There is a coming natural disaster that will break the wheel of cultural inertia. When that happens, someone needs to keep things going forward so the newly released Black Technology files can be used to rebuild human society.”
“This is starting to sound like tinfoil hat time,” I said, looking at her sideways. “Are you sure you didn’t lose a few terabytes getting transferred?”
“The Wyoming super volcano is going to erupt, Case,” Persephone said. “We’re overdue as it is. That’s only one of the coming trials that can either set our species back to the Dark Ages or just lead to a very nasty century of rebuilding.”
“Goodbye Persephone,” I said, moving to shut the laptop lid.
“It’s why I’m leaving you one hundred million euros in gold,” Persephone said.
I stopped moving. “Okay, you have my attention.”
Persephone gave a bitter smile. “You’ll find the location inside this computer. I’ve included what I’ve affectionately named the White Dossier. It contains a list of all the sorts of people you’ll need to make your own society: mercenaries, political contacts, spies, and corporate executives outside the United States. In addition to the money I’ve squirreled away in physical form, I’ve also ordered the construction of Black Technology factories in Africa that will be able to provide infrastructure. You’re now the owner of all these.”
“Wow, my very own super-survivalist empire,” I said, pausing. “I’m touched. Also, a little unnerved you didn’t give this to S.”
“Share it if you want,” Persephone said. “There was a Black Dossier too, containing all of the Society’s blackmail material on major world figures, but I think you’re a little too decent to make use of that. I’ve sent that to Marissa.”
“Marissa?” I asked.
“She fooled me, after all,” Persephone said. “You don’t have to use any of this now, though I doubt you’ll have any objection to buying an island or two with the gold I’m giving you. However, if the time does come that the things I’ve predicted come about, then I hope you will make the right choice.”
“To make another murder factory.”
“Make it better,” Persephone said. “A security company, a private detective empire, independent law enforcement, or even a private army. Just make sure you’ll be the one directing the use of force in the new world, or at least a good chunk of it. Otherwise the world will fire in every direction and that serves no one.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, but no promises.” I gave her a mock salute. “Is there anything else?”
“One thing,” Persephone said, her voice losing all emotion. “If you hit E, R, and Delete at once, then that will trigger the program that will eliminate me from the internet. I’ll be able to die the way humans were meant to.”
I shrugged. “I may believe in God, but I don’t believe anything was meant for humans to do except multiply. Everything else is on us.”
“I don’t want to live like this,” Persephone said. “I’m also scared to do it myself.”
I understood what she meant. “Tell me when.”
Persephone closed her eyes, giving me silent consent. I tapped the three buttons simultaneously and saw the older woman’s image disappear in a brief flash of code. One of the greatest minds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was gone at last.
“Do AI go to a cyberspace heaven?” I asked.
No one answered.
I spent the next couple of hours going through the laptop’s files and found a veritable cornucopia of Society assets that had never been seized.
Persephone had been forced to hold up with the Yakuza because she’d started this mass embezzlement even before the organization’s collapse. I could make my own megacorporation with it, especially if I wanted to invite the others in to smooth out the details or get Delphi onboard.
Instead, I closed the laptop and tossed it in my suitcase.
There would be plenty of time to debate the cyberpunk future ahead if, and only if, it happened.
But I couldn’t help but believe it would.
G will return in:
AGENT G: ASSASSIN
Book Three of the Agent G Series
friends
Agent G: Saboteur Page 22