by Carl Neville
Katja
The hasty attempt to turn an interrogation room into something more neutral is only a very partial success. An old sofa and a table with a few books on it make it look more like a dentist’s waiting room than anything else.
Am I a suspect? she asks.
At the moment you’re nothing. We are waiting for a representative from your embassy to respond to your detention.
So, what does that mean?
We don’t have these cases very often, she says, trying to deflect from the fact that she has no real idea what the protocols are. We’ll have something more concrete for you soon. So looking at previous examples if the embassy doesn’t reply to our notification, it triggers an automatic repatriation.
And if they do respond?
Then they think there is a legal or political or diplomatic case to answer. But, she says, at the moment you still have almost full guest rights. Except you can’t leave this building.
She visibly relaxes. OK, so… So in forty-eight hours I could be on a plane home.
Yes. I can’t guarantee anything of course. And you can refuse, but we just have some questions to help the investigation, we can only request that from you.
I would like to help, she says. I wouldn’t, I mean, consciously do anything against anyone. They were so, so welcoming to me. I just, I can’t believe I can be responsible for…
If it’s distressing, would you like me to get you a Dev?
There’s long pause in which she looks distractedly away to one side. I think I have had enough pills, she says.
OK. Katja taps the red button on her ROD and sees Barrow has sent her a list of questions. She pauses for a second, they all seem to have the same subject and she experiences misgiving about the direction Barrow seems to be taking.
Why are you studying the works of Vernon Crane? What is Field Recording #4?
Oh, she says, a work of Crane’s. I found it on the Urkive.
Did you listen to it?
Yes.
And then what happened?
Well, she says, I suppose it was what persuaded me to do my research on him.
Did you experience any physical or mental…?
There is a tap at the door and Katja swivels in her seat, sees a short, chubby woman leaning in with her eyes wide and her lips pressed tight. She lifts an identification card on a lanyard around her neck and waves it roughly in her direction. SSF1, she says in a constricted voice. A quick word?
Tom/Barrow
What’s the subject of Safety for the Apes?
The early stages of the Autarchy, Tom says, the liberation of the animals in the nation’s zoos and their integration into the urban landscape. And the re-imprisonment of some of the animals.
Do you see it as an imprisonment?
No, but I believe the playwright does.
What should be done with a dangerous animal?
Dangerous to whom? Even the way you phrase the question. Which animal has proven more dangerous to other species than man?
What should happen to man?
He should understand the danger he represents fully and act wisely, as I believe we are doing.
All of us?
Yes. Overwhelmingly, yes.
Who among us is not or has not acted wisely? Those who maintain the prisons for these animals?
As I said, I believe some animals are better in specific habitats than others. Large predators. I mean it seems obvious to me.
But it is not obvious to all, some would call you a speciesist, and say that you rank the different forms of life differently, grant lesser freedom to them. That a certain amount of predation is the price to pay for absolute equivalence of freedom.
I would respectfully disagree.
Yet you do have associates that belong to the Ontological Liberation Front and groups that promote speculative Jainism.
Among many other interests, yes. And I have many friends
He’s becoming anxious, understandably.
Do you believe in this play the apes are a metaphor?
No, I think that is reductive, the animals are animals.
Yet they have inevitable symbolic qualities.
Why inevitable? I think this is an attempt to defamiliarize those metaphors, to let the animals really stand, it’s impossible to understand many elements of the play without understanding non-human languages.
Why do you think this play has become so popular?
It’s partly because of its form.
And partly because?
It’s an interesting period, a moment many people have forgotten.
Because it is critical of some elements of that period?
Well that stimulates discussion and reflection and action.
What kind of action?
Please, he says. There is a tremor in his voice. Please don’t push me in this direction. I loved Alan Bewes. I have known him since I was a child.
Barrow glances at the readout on the screen in front of him.
So you went to America, to a University in California, an area filled with defectors and home to the strongest anti-PRB forces, to present work to students there that you yourself believe is critical of the period of the Autarchy, the foundation of the current system, a period in which Bewes was an important participant.
No, he says.
Do you think that any hostile agents might have interpreted you as open to persuasion?
I can’t know that. If I have been infected, he says, it is unfair of you to imply that this was possible due to my own susceptibility.
Do you admire the author of the play? Did you call on McFarlane himself while you were there to discuss his work or his ongoing agitation against the Co-operative Sphere and the PRB?
No, of course not.
Do you believe the lion has lain down with lamb? That man is shepherd to man?
Katja
I am Mr Squires’s personal assistant, she says, flips the ID card up toward her again. Sylvie. First of all, you cannot offer the interviewee Deveretol. Secondly, are you questioning the interviewee? Voice a little above a whisper, eyes searching Katja’s face for signs of a lie, mouth a crease.
No, I have been asked to keep her company, we are chatting, that’s all. I thought any background information I could get might be useful. Is it being monitored?
Yes.
Even though she’s not officially being questioned?
A pause.
Is that procedure? she asks. She genuinely doesn’t know, but judging by the colouration to the cheeks she assumes the answer is no.
Can I go back in then, or are you officially…?
OK. I will, officially, the woman says looking irritated, walking backwards along the corridor. Very well, let’s make it official.
She goes back in, sits down and looks again at Julia.
Are you in trouble? Julia asks.
I shouldn’t be talking to you, she says apologetically.
The only thing you are allowed to tell me is that you’re not allowed to tell me anything. I get it.
I think until we have been told by your Embassy what—
Another polite tap at the door. That was quick. She turns with her customary smile to find a tall, stooped man in his late sixties with unnaturally blond hair and a drooping fringe slouching in the doorway, smiling.
I am Squires, he says. My office?
Barrow/Tom
We have some questions about your activities around the Games, he says. Why did you pull out of the ceremony?
I wanted to spend time with Julia Verona.
It was voluntary?
In agreement with my co-hosts.
A big decision after all that work.
I have feelings for… moods.
What, the kind of moods that the patch couldn’t regulate?
He swallows. Well, emotional problems. Unrequited feelings.
For?
For? Do I have to?
We would encourage full disclosure.
Jul
ia Verona.
How long have you had these uncontrollable feelings?
Can I have some Magdalol? I have been diagnosed with I.P.S.
We prohibit use of pharms during interviews, they interfere with readings. You are being monitored via the patch. Other sensors. How long have you had these uncontrollable feelings?
Since I visited the—
Strong feelings? Possessive feelings. The kind that might lead you to bend the rules around getting her access to the PRB?
He looks down. How much they might know, how bad any number of things he has done might look, what his own motives might truly have been, if they ever were his own motives, all roil through him and make his face twitch and colour.
Think back to when you first experienced them, these uncontrollable feelings that have led you here.
I couldn’t get her out of my mind, he says.
Who put her there?
Something? Someone? I don’t know. My own history is complicated. Have you never been in love? he asks.
Barrow is lost for words for an instant. We must love in accordance with the law.
I understand that. But I couldn’t know that, I can’t believe she is responsible for—
No one is being held responsible yet, he says. We simply want to find out who might be using you to further their ends. What is Field Recording #4?
A flicker, a slight flaring of the nostrils
A work of Crane’s. A work that went missing.
Did you upload it to the Urkive?
It? No. There are lots of speculative attempts at it floating around, where there’s a gap in the record people like to guess what shape might fill that gap. Someone might have uploaded one of those.
It has come through your South Academy account. Who else has access to that?
Well my colleagues there. He is hesitant, doesn’t want to get people into trouble. Yes. I… we don’t have sole user private access to things, he says. We are not SSF.
Your vote in the SSF referendum, was…
For full public access.
This is the position of the South Academy.
Which I agree with.
It is also strongly anti-Games.
Which I do not agree with.
And your colleagues on the UAV programme?
Are also pro-Games, of course, that’s why we participated. Though we understand why many are not.
The patch is constricting painfully on Barrow’s forearm now and he reaches to rip it off but checks himself, breathes out slowly, glances at the Passocon feed. Squires is summoning him.
Very well, he says. This session is over.
Barrow/Squires
Katja is already sitting straight-backed and neutral in one chair, Barrow takes the other.
Squires is sitting forward, elbows on the table, fingers steepled in front of his face, lips pursed.
Complications, Squires says. So far there has been no official response from the Americans. Which means within the next forty-eight hours Verona will be automatically returned to the US. This is unusual, normally we would expect protocol to be respected, our right to question and prosecute, there to be some oversight and so on.
And why not here?
Well, SSF3 informs us, he gestures to something on his Passocon that neither of them can see, that Verona is already all over the US media. Two main factors have been reported, first she is accused of spreading a malicious virus through the domestic networks, something she has illegally downloaded from a PRB bridge site. Both she and her partner have a history of anti-Connaught activity and protest, she is a known PRB-ophile with a history of contact with and hosting of Co-Sphere citizens in the US, including PRB citizens currently under suspicion of the murder of Alan Bewes.
How have they got this information so quickly?
How indeed? Squires smiles tightly.
She has been categorized as a subversive. We can assume therefore that on arrival in the States she will be detained. The non-response of her embassy then, implies that they may want her back as soon as possible to answer charges of infiltrating the domestic network. For propaganda purposes as much as anything, we assume.
Her partner has already been detained for, he glances back at the screen, bio subversion, effectively. His Passocon was used to download the file it seems, so the legal culpability is his. Maximum of fifty years under recent legislation. We will be refusing to comply with any request for an immediate return but must return her within the mandatory forty-eight-hour period of course. Unless…
How can they rationalise Verona being involved in attacks on both Bewes and the American domains?
They have no interest in Bewes, or indeed rationality, only this attack on their system, this claimed attack, point of origination: the PRB.
Do we have any independent verification of this attack? Isn’t this an attempt to head off the fact that we have had a high level SSF1 figure assassinated by—
Yes, yes, Squires smiles. Verification? We are working on it. The different scenarios are being gamed and simulated across in other areas of SSF2, unofficially. Pan-Co-Sphere agents. So, that’s the current situation regarding Verona. Anything else?
Who has been locking files? What does it mean that you were at Bewes’s house the night he died? Why have you made it impossible for us to access the files on PRB 2003701’s ROD? Barrow would like to ask but checks himself. Now is not the moment.
Nothing.
Squires addresses himself to Katja. For the moment say nothing of what we have just discussed. I’ll appoint someone from my department to deal with relaying the technical information. You can continue in an essentially — momentary flicker of irony, distant contempt? — pastoral role. You both understand that you should not have initiated conversation with either subject until it was greenlighted by all departments, of course.
I have a sense of urgency, Barrow says.
Squires sits back, appraises him. Now you have started you may as well continue, we can find some justification later should it get picked up on. And Barrow. Respond to your patch. Keep it on at all times.
Understood, he says. Tilts back the cup and drains the tea.
Katja, a moment, Squires says as Barrow stands to leave.
Katja
They begin to walk down the corridor together, the smell of alcohol coming off Squires has intensified and he seems to be focusing on maintaining a straight line down to the lift.
Tell me about Barrow, he says, you seem to be working very closely with him. How is that?
Quite a direct question. She worries that she is going to get tangled up in issues that will either keep her in the PRB or make her a persona non grata.
Are you asking me formally or informally? she asks.
Would your answer vary? Squires says as the lift doors close. Besides, here in the PRB the formal/informal distinction is rather blurred. Should I call you in, formally?
Is there an investigation? Into Barrow?
Routine information gathering, he says, feedback from operatives on their experience of particular actors within the chain of command. Auditing.
I think anything I say should be formally documented, she says.
As you see fit, Squires says. The lift door opens, and she smiles and nods, turns left to go back to the questioning room and a few metres down the corridor her ROD beeps: a request for a formal interview for later that evening. She spots Tereza in the kitchen standing waiting for the kettle to boil, yawning, looks to have been up most of the night.
Hey, she says as Tereza pours hot water into the coffee granules, stirs it, spoons in sugar. Lost my patch somewhere, she explains, waiting for SSF3 to send up another one. The coffee here is pretty bad.
Can we speak? Katja asks, reaches back and closes the door, shows Tereza the message on her ROD. It’s about Barrow. Squires wants my assessment of him. Can I refuse? I’m not familiar enough with the PRB’s protocol to…
Uh huh. Tereza says, non-committal, sips at the coffee, looks up a
t her. What is your assessment?
Professionally? He has… his focus has been right, she says, in some ways, but he is obsessing over, I think, personal things. What’s the word? she smiles. Vendetta. I think he has one against other people in SSF or against people from the past. He’s doing exactly what we are trained not to do. Projecting. He wants there to be particular answers, he’s losing the ability to differentiate between his own fantasies and the real needs of the case. I think there’s some SSF politics going on here that I don’t want to get caught up in. I mean, this is just a mandatory work detail until we all move on.
Can you delay it? I mean, we are busy at the moment. She laughs. It seems a strange time to request it.
Would he if it wasn’t urgent, if Barrow’s competence wasn’t a serious question?
Tereza shrugs. I don’t know, she says. I don’t think I can help here. I have so much to do, she moves toward the door. That’s fine, you don’t have to work with the volunteers we have got she says. Most of them seem to be not exactly sabotaging things but very reluctant to make an effort. Sorry, she says, offers a sympathetic smile.
He seems completely focused on Julia Verona’s research interests, and as far as I know, he hasn’t taken any interest in keeping up with what Lewis and Abhi are doing.
What are they doing?
They are out in the field, other than that I don’t know. Maybe they are onto something. We have the suspects in custody now, maybe their side is something we should be following up?
Lewis
Abhishek crouches down and checks his ROD discreetly, the signal has been coming from one of the buildings across on the other side of the street, the flickering display shows that a breach in the Partition is in progress. He stands and stretches as Lewis limbers up beside him, the tower block has a number of masts sticking out of the top and he gestures that they should go up there, take a look at the physical structure itself, see how portable it is, what it’s made from, how they might be able to hack into it themselves and see what kind of activity is going on.