by Carl Neville
Waterston: But of course not. The Russians were never present during the Autarchy, the Breach, certainly not high-ranking members of E-COMECON or the Winter Academy in any kind of capacity. An absurd notion. But this is the deliberate attempt to sow confusion on the part of the American establishment.
A moment’s firmly articulated silence is allowed to impress itself upon the world, then, a knock at the door.
Barrow.
Katja
Katja comes down the corridor and a colleague from SSF3 is waiting, looking slightly impatient. She has a number of documents in her hand, one of which is the full scan and medical report. She flips over to the third page and points to a piece of relevant information halfway down.
Your role is essentially, momentary pause, pastoral, isn’t it?
Katja sighs slightly and the colleague cuts in.
That’s what I’ve been told. This I think is a pastoral matter. Don’t you?
She takes the document and they enter the room, Julia Verona absorbed in watching a lecture from the South Academy on the Passocon, headphones on.
She pulls them off, watches them come in and sit at the table with a slightly dazed air, this must all seem unreal to her.
We have someone in custody who has essentially exonerated you from any wrongdoing in this matter, your scans are all clear.
And Tom?
I can’t discuss that I’m afraid.
It’s not quite so clear in his case.
So, I can go home again?
Not quite yet, Katja says. It’s a little more complicated than that, defers to the woman sitting beside her.
We monitor your media of course, TV, social media, the same way you monitor ours, she says. Our understanding is that you have been classified as an enemy combatant. You are already being used as propaganda. We have channels of communication open, we have told them what we know. They are making quite a lot out of your, she pauses, the word feels wrong but it’s what they say in the USA, ethnicity.
Enemy combatant? she laughs. Really? I haven’t even. Why?
You have downloaded something, Field Recording #4, that they claim is a virus.
A pause. Fuck, she says.
Your government has issued an immediate repatriation order. We want you to know what the situation is, and your options.
And you can’t contact my parents?
We are trying but, no matter how influential or resourceful they are, we doubt they will have much purchase on events.
Did you get a message through to Kevin?
A pause. He has been detained by your government for this security breach too, Katja says.
Julia
It’s funny, she says, I always fantasized about living here, but suddenly.
We get attached to what we know.
I never imagined it would be like this. One side or the other. I thought an academic career you know, and I could fly in and out of these two worlds at my leisure.
Perhaps if the Administration changes. If relations renormalize.
Can I? What are my options?
Well, there are official and unofficial paths to staying in the Co-Sphere.
That sounds complicated.
If you officially defect that closes down any future possibility of a return, but if you go into limbo, in other words if you neither commit to the Co-Sphere nor go home, that leaves possibilities open. We would not actively pursue you though we would have to be seen to be doing so.
If you get up to the north east it’s easy to disappear, if you go further south then there are pockets which are off-grid, it’s plausible we may not be able to track you. It would mean that you would be outside official channels, officially outside official channels, if you see what I mean.
How am I supposed to escape?
Well, Katja says, pleased to be able to give some good news. Jennifer Bewes has agreed to take you in under house arrest while the legal issues go back and forth for a few days, the SSF presence will be intermittent. Jennifer Bewes has some experience in this area, so.
Jennifer, such a good person, how can she ever repay such generosity of spirit.
Well. What do you advise?
The SSF3 colleague shuffles her papers. I think we have already advised you, she says.
Katja
The SSF3 colleague leaves the two of them alone, time for the merely pastoral.
How best to approach the situation? She has no training for this, but then she has had no training for most of things she has done so far on what she thought was a routine investigation. Once this is over she will have to think about her own inability to say no to requests, even if they come from Abhi.
There’s something else, she says, that may affect your decision.
A long pause. Julia Verona seems distracted by her own thoughts. She contemplates just giving her the full scan results but it’s a mass of information and she will just have to point out the relevant section to her anyway.
Julia looks up, senses her seriousness, her reluctance.
What is it? she says. Just tell me.
Waterston
Barrow enters, takes a seat.
Go ahead, Waterston says.
This incident at the stadium, the explosion, my suspension. I wonder whether elements within SSF who are opposed to the Vote might be acting to shore up their interests. Fabricating things. Ahead of the bill, might they have a reason to want to sabotage the Games in some ways? Creating emergencies.
Ah, Squires says, the old false flag. Of course, you are barking up the wrong tree. But who knows what unexpected things may come tumbling down if you bark long and hard enough? And you are nothing if not dogged, Barrow. But this emergency is I am afraid to say entirely of your own making. Well, perhaps not entirely your own and…
Why have you been locking and redacting files?
…the solution lies beyond both your remedy and your remit. As to the files. The Co-Sphere partners have requested, temporarily, until the Vote takes effect that…
You mean the Russians want it locked?
Not only the Russians, he says. But clearly the information contained within those records is not purely a domestic concern. Though even if it were. There is a move to lock any files, redact any materials that pertain to non-PRB actors.
Indefinitely?
Well, perhaps once Zoloff dies.
Why Zoloff?
Squires looks a little surprised. An inner watchfulness alerted. A sip of his drink. They are reluctant to have such a great figure’s name associated with… He sits back, surely Barrow sees and it can go unsaid.
Barrow is trying to grasp it, to piece something together that he should already know, and Waterston realises that he and Squires are now sharing a similar moment of suppressed incredulity.
So, your activities around the Breach…
Our activities around the Breach you mean?
I am happy for mine to be a matter of public record.
Are you? Squires sits back, glances across at Waterston. All of them? Then why have we locked your file? Tell me, Barrow. What do you remember of the Breach?
I was undercover.
Urban or?
I was at a number of flashpoints yes, exerting pressure. Discreet pressure.
Have you been trying to access your own file, Barrow? Are there things you are uncertain of? Do you need to see the record, written down? You understand when everything is made public we will not be able to hide from each other, even minimally. Or from ourselves. Are you tired of hiding, Barrow? Squires sits back, his smile contains a trace of horror. It’s quite something to have access to one’s own file, Barrow. The files of everyone we know at the deepest level of inspection. Quite a shock to one’s system. One’s self-conception. One’s capacity to function. I understand your, he smiles, enthusiasm, Barrow, but I want you to see a psych specialist.
I see Frith already, Barrow says.
Yes but not a repressive, an abreactive analyst.
Repressive? What do yo
u mean?
How long have you been seeing him? Squires asks, his head inclined toward Waterston, his voice controlled. You understand Frith’s role? I wonder whether there hasn’t been some, I am no expert in these matters, he pauses to find the right word, leakage.
Rose
She showers, goes into the bedroom, wraps the kimono around herself, sits on the end of the bed. Still not ready. Reaches for a Dev automatically, starts flicking through old photos she has brought up from Birmingham. Here’s one of them together at one of the rallies, a park, he has his arm around her. She gazes at it for a few minutes as the Dev starts to work, to mop up the drinks she had in the South Academy, mute the background noise, bring the image glowingly into relief, threatening to overflow the frame, flow free, almost as though it were a portal through to that captured world. Perhaps Sixtwo knows a way to bring those golden moments back, to catch the traces and strengthen them, allow her to feel that sun warm on her back again, hear the singing, the manifold future unfurling, her arm locked tight around her lover and no fear of time, only life offering itself up as an endless frolic.
She should go and see him.
Gaze upon him one last time.
One last touch of his living flesh.
To hold in the memory.
And your child?
All she has asked is to know if she is dead or alive.
She hesitates a moment more, still can’t summon the courage to tap the message open.
Waterston
There is a long pause. Jack, Squires says, his tone is frank, familiar. Barrow, well. You must see how we have run up against the limits of what we can reasonably achieve without help. I should have insisted on a more thorough evaluation before he was put in post. I think now we must insist on one.
Waterston turns toward the window. Yes, perhaps Squires is right. Certainly this has been a misjudgement, to not have any memory of his own role within the Breach. Frith too good at his work perhaps. He wonders what he himself might have forgotten.
Tentatively, Squires again, Jack?
Ah, yes.
We have still other if related matters to discuss.
Shouldn’t we wait for Evans?
Evans won’t be joining us today, in light of certain ill-advised comments.
The word coup you mean.
Well, that and his observations about purges in the Clarion, highly emotive language, we need to respect the sensitivities of our Co-Sphere partners, differing voices within the PRB itself.
Sensitivities but not preferences, is that it? He’s been put out to pasture.
Perhaps the grass is greener there, Squires says with an almost coy smile that Waterston finds immediately irritating. He tries to contain his emotion.
You will have read the report on the stadium, the explosion. We need specialists if we are dealing with highly trained operatives with sophisticated weaponry. Can we send citizen volunteers in, no matter how enthusiastic? Will you dragoon in some more hapless gardeners from the hinterland to start searching buildings in the south of the city? Of course the situation is impossible. Already we might say that the decisions you have made so far, decisions such as appointing Barrow, holding the Co-Sphere delegations at bay, have been as much to shore up your own position regarding the changes to SFF1.
As we might say that some of the events that have unfolded over the last week or so have benefited yours, Waterston says.
Squires looks down and to the side for a moment before returning his gaze to Waterston. That is an accusation of malfeasance, to use those dead words…
He pauses, lets Waterston understand the implications of his using such a term.
… of treason, treachery. Whereas my accusation is merely incompetence.
Not so. Your accusation is that I am aligned in principle against the interest of the Co-Sphere.
Neither of us, Squires leans in, after all Jack, we are old enough to still be British in some sense, is doctrinaire. He drawls the word out. Is he drunk? There is no commitment to ideological purity here, his voice has dropped to whisper, we are, he casts around for a phrase for a moment, pragmatic, aren’t we? Now is not the moment, let us not imperil what we have through the pursuit of some impossible beyond. And besides, he sits back. We are in a state of emergency. You have little choice.
Jack, don’t betray your name, your title, the Guarantor. What guarantee did you offer? That you would deny yourself that necessity of speaking out, confessing, that you would live with the pressure of silence and secrets?
I feel, Waterston says suddenly, as if I have always been entombed by it.
And so you have, so have we all. Here we are, in our sepulchres, that we have built for ourselves and go on building daily. Jack, enjoy the sunlight down on the coast, with the others, with Evans, Collinson. Don’t compromise your outstanding service, your life’s work, here at the end.
I, Waterston says and suddenly something goes, some vast structure collapses around him and that moment really is here, the moment of relinquishment. He stands and goes to the teak globe, is a little unsteady on his feet, gets out a bottle of scotch, knows he will pour a welcome drink for Squires, a farewell drink for himself, sees his face in the mirror above it, he is old, enough now, time. Perhaps there is something almost like tears in his eyes as it all falls away and it is the most he can do not to let out a sigh, of regret or relief he couldn’t say. A dizziness, a sudden lightening, a gulping breath in the altitude and thin air, the welcoming black endlessness of the spaces between the stars.
I have still to welcome Altborg tomorrow, he says. Squires has stood up and moved beside him now to the drink table, rests his hand on the rim.
Jack, he says, of course. This is the wise course.
You are not a young man yourself Squires, after you’ve gone, who? They don’t have the temperament for it.
Squires adds a little water to his glass, half smiles. Après moi, le deluge.
Tereza
The first group of four recruits for compulsory work detail have separated off from the main group.
What is your name? she asks, eyes down on the Passocon.
James.
You?
Hmmm, he thinks for a long time. James, he says.
The same name? She looks up. Why not choose something different to make it easier?
Is it easier for me to be called by a name I don’t want than it is for you to have to find a way to differentiate between us?
Fine. James one and James two, she says.
Why should I be two, or one for that matter, the order you asked us in is arbitrary.
Would you have said James at all if I had asked you first, though?
Yes.
She grits her teeth. She can see in her peripheral vision that the next man along is already smiling to himself. PRB 734692? she asks. He nods. Do you have a name you would like to be referred to by?
Another long pause as he pretends to think about it. The boy next to him yawns then proceeds to chew on a lock of hair that has fallen forward over his face. Don’t say James, she thinks, just don’t…
Nihil, he says.
Neil, she says.
Nihil, he says again, spells it out, not Neil.
Thank you. You? PRB 564986?
The boy keeps chewing his hair, rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and makes a long questioning noise in the back of his throat that he extends unnaturally.
ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The others suppress their amusement. This is childish, she is about to lose her temper. You are adults, she wants to shout, this is serious.
Nihil, he says.
She breathes slowly out through her nose. Fine, she says. You’re Nihil too?
Nihil two?
Also Nihil.
Also not NEE-hil, nee-HIL
I’m NEE-hil
And I am Nee-HIL.
You’re fucking arseholes, she wants to say, but that would be unprofessional. Perhaps you don’t want to be
here, she says to them, but we are in an emergency situation.
How convenient, James says.
She ignores him. We need you to...
Someone has opened the far door and is up on tiptoes looking at her expectantly. She smiles tightly at the group and goes across to speak to them, another interruption.
You can dismiss these citizens, the woman says in a whisper. Change of command, we have brought in PCSDF.
Well, she says, irritated that she has been running around doing all this work for nothing and now has to tell these people to go home, pleased that she doesn’t have to try and get them to take their duties seriously, that the operation will get the resources it needs, so on balance, thank god for that.
Barrow
He stands at the window and goes back over the conversation he has just had with Waterston and Squires. One word, barely noticed in the heat of the moment, returns to him, a repressive. What does that mean? Why the expression of surprise when he mentioned Frith, the questions about his role in the Breach?
His ROD buzzes. A message from Goodridge sent with the Evan-Ess plet. Interesting but he has no time to look at and absorb the message right now, there are too many other things he needs to consider.
A discreet but firm rap of knuckles against wood, the short, overweight woman who oversaw the presentation earlier and who confessed that they had locked his file. He nods and she opts to stand rather than take the seat he gestures to.
You have put in another access request for PRB 2003701 ROD which has again been declined. In turn we have…
We?
SSF3 have a few questions regarding your interrogation procedures, she says.
Barrow remains silent.
Did you take off your patch during the interrogation?
Yes.
Why?
I thought, Barrow pauses, it may have been directing my questions in some way.
A flicker of surprise.