Degrees of Freedom

by Simon Morden

  “Sam, get in the car.”

  He did as he was told. The Oshicora cars went left toward the Post Office Tower, and theirs went right toward Hyde Park. He was ten minutes late for the show—except there’d be no performance today. No webcams, no streaming, no blog comment or news footage. Just him and whoever might break the curfew and turn up. It was almost like the first few weeks of his calculated act of defiance, before it became the media event he couldn’t stop doing.

  Valentina drove past their hotel and the Wellington Monument, down Piccadilly. She eased her foot off the accelerator as the rubble of the Oshicora building came into view between the rising skyscrapers on either side of the plot.

  It was swarming with people, each of them taking something from the mound and carrying it away. There wasn’t much space around for the debris to go: instead, spontaneous barricades were collecting on all the approach roads.

  The car stopped in front of a ragged line of concrete blocks that lay across both carriageways, and Petrovitch watched as the workers—mostly construction types in their usual laboring wear, but also office staff who had discarded their jackets or high heels or both, and overalled sanitation crews, and cooks and drivers and a good number of blue-covered Oshicora employees—carried more fragments of glass, metal and stone and placed them down.

  “What are they doing?”

  Lucy leaned in next to him. “I know you’re smart and everything, but really. What does it look like they’re doing?”

  “No, I know what they’re doing. It should have been more like, they have to stop doing it. Now.” He got out and stared at the ant-hill of activity.

  “And how are you going to get them to do that?” Lucy stood next to him and surveyed the scene.

  “I’m going to talk to them,” said Petrovitch. He blinked. “Yeah, that’s scary.”

  He took a deep breath and started forward. They parted for him, looking at him with reverence as he walked by. Then they carried on under the weight of their heavy loads.

  Lucy stayed close, and when he got to the bottom of the rubble pile, he reached down to help her up. His arm seized completely.

  “Ah, oblom.” He looked at the now-useless exoskeleton supporting his shattered bones.

  “Do you want me get you some more batteries?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Better off getting me a saw.” He used his right hand to force the hinges into an acceptable shape, before letting the arm fall uselessly by his side. “Come on.”

  The further they climbed, the fewer people they met, until at last they were above the crowd. The geography of the pile had changed: more pieces of the fallen tower had been shifted in the time it had taken to reach their present height than had been thrown off by Petrovitch in all the preceding months.

  Coming down the side street was a digger, spewing blue fumes into the air.

  “Look at them,” said Petrovitch. “A couple of days, and we’d be there: all the way down to the basement. They’d work day and night: keep going until it was all gone.”

  “Then why don’t you let them?” Lucy steadied herself using his shoulder. “They want to do it.”

  “Because we’re being watched, whether we like it or not. Right up there, beyond the atmosphere, the American satellites will be looking down on us and there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m guessing Mackensie is in his war room right now, staring at the top of my head and wondering how many nukes it’ll take to bunker-bust Michael’s coffin.” He smiled sadly at her. “I can’t let that happen. These people, they think they’re doing the right thing, but every bit of rebar they drag out and pile up means it’s less likely that I can get Michael out, not more.”

  “They’re just copying you,” she said. “What was that all about if you didn’t mean it to work?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Right now, we have to attract several thousands of people’s attention and get them close enough that I can shout at them.”

  They stood there, but that didn’t seem to work at all. So he drew his gun and was about to waste some bullets when Lucy placed two fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle.

  “Yobany stos, girl. Some warning, okay?”

  She grinned at him, even as the dying echo of her whistle bounced around the surrounding buildings.

  The people closest to them stopped. They dropped what they were carrying, and started to gather. The ripple spread outward: the crowd in front of Petrovitch grew more dense. After five minutes, he had everyone, even the driver of the digger.

  They were all looking at him, and he knew there was no way out of this. He cleared his throat noisily, scratched at his ear, and adjusted his left arm again.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Some of them even said hello back.

  “You’re probably wondering why I asked you here today—but that’s not true: you’re here because you wanted to be here, despite everything that’s gone on today and the fact that you’re not supposed to be here at all. I’m touched. No, I’m moved. I didn’t know you thought that much…” He ground to a halt, and looked to Lucy for inspiration.

  “Go on. Tell them,” she urged.

  So he did.

  “I love you all.” He stopped, then started again when he realized that he actually felt that way. “You’re brilliant. Loads of you have seen your houses wrecked, your friends and your families run out of town, you’ve lost people you care about and your lives have been turned upside down. But you’re still here, still thinking about the future and how you can build it bigger and better and brighter. The Freezone is more than a job to you. It’s part of you and you want to make it work. And it will work, because you care enough to make a go of it.

  “Problem is, we’ve been let down. You all know about Container Zero and the New Machine Jihad. You all know that I’ve been accused of threatening those in charge of the Freezone with a nuclear bomb unless they let Michael out. That’s enough to turn anyone against me: Samuil Petrovitch the Armageddonist. And you came anyway, not out of fear, but because you knew a different Sam Petrovitch, one who would die to save the city.

  “Which is why I’m going to ask you to stop. You’re going to get us all killed if you carry on. This city’s stood for two thousand years: I want it to be here for another two thousand, and I want the rest of the land beyond the cordon to be opened up, and I want peace with the Outies, and I want your children and theirs to build on the ruins of all the old villages and towns and cities and live forever. That can only happen if the Freezone survives.

  “So, what I want you to do is this: go to work. Go and tell your shift. Bang on doors and shout in the streets. It’s time to go to work. It’s perfectly safe. There is no bomb, and there never was. I want you to let me deal with the consequences of that. What I can’t do is your jobs. You know what you do best. You know your wiring, your plumbing, your plastering, your welding, your digging, whatever it is you do. Today is a work day, and people are sitting in their domiks, in their hostels, wondering what the huy is going on. Get them out. Get them working.

  “I appreciate we’ve got little or no power at the moment, you can’t call anybody up, you can’t check computers for plans and figures. I’m going to have to fix that shortly. But you need to be ready for when the Freezone comes alive again, so we don’t miss a moment more than we have to.

  “I’m guessing that to get here, you had to dodge patrols and sneak past road blocks. On your way back, don’t worry about them. You’ll be challenged—why you’re not obeying the curfew—but this is how you respond: we’ve got work to do. Don’t be put off. Don’t let yourself be persuaded otherwise. We’ve all got work to do. Let’s not waste any more time with this: I’m just prattling on now, and you’re going to get bored soon.”

  Someone laughed, and Petrovitch was eternally grateful.

  “Go on. We all know what it is we’re supposed to be doing. So let’s do it.”

  He walked down, like Moses off the mountain, his left arm dragging his wh
ole body to one side. The crowd, rather than moving out of his way, came closer still. It seemed that what they wanted to do first, before anything else, was to touch him. Those who couldn’t make their way through the press of bodies surrounding him started to applaud him.

  He became separated from Lucy. He could feel her fingers slip away from him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Pizdets,” he muttered under his breath. “Utter pizdets.”

  Then someone came to his rescue. She put her strong arm around him and shielded him as she eased him through the crowd—gently but firmly so as not to upset anyone, giving them time to reach out for him without allowing him to get crushed.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” said Madeleine. “Where’s your car?”

  “West side of Piccadilly.”

  She carefully changed direction. “What happened to your arm?”

  “Ran out of watts. Can you see Lucy?”

  Using her height, she quickly scanned the tops of the nearby heads. “I’ll go back for her. Let’s get you to safety first.”

  Madeleine kept going, calm and relentless, up to the barricade, over it, and to the front passenger door of the car. She stood there, holding it open while he got in, and closed it slowly so that fingers didn’t get trapped.

  Then she climbed up onto the hood to try and locate Lucy.

  Valentina tutted. “Look: bodywork is dented.”

  “You should worry. My bodywork is more than dented.” Petrovitch hauled his arm around so it laid on his lap, and looked up at Madeleine’s leather-clad legs. He was momentarily distracted, so that he didn’t answer Valentina straightaway.

  Only when the view cleared and Madeleine started back through the crowd did he acknowledge her.

  “Sorry. What was that?”

  “I said, does this mean we are now in charge?”

  “Yeah. No. I guess so. Looks like you’ve got your revolution after all.”

  19

  Once they were all back together again, there was a long awkward silence. Lucy was squashed in between Tabletop on one side and Madeleine on the other. Valentina tapped the dash with her keys, while Petrovitch was busy trying to work out just what the hell he’d told everyone he’d do.

  It meant rewinding the file and cringing like a stray dog in a street fight. He realized he’d backed himself into a corner, and there was only one way to make good his promises.

  All the while, the silence stretched on. The crowd were dispersing, and were already visibly thinned.

  “I think I owe you all an apology,” said Madeleine. She shifted, leathers creaking. “Sorry.”

  If anyone was in a forgiving mood, they hid it well.

  “Do you know,” said Valentina, “how much trouble we are in?” Novosibirsk on mid-winter’s day would have been warmer.

  “I have some idea.”

  Tabletop leaned forward, while Lucy shrank in her seat. “My ex-colleagues from the CIA turned up. There were more of them than we expected. Then we discovered that the supposed nuclear bomb was packed with plastic, to be triggered by a mobile phone that Sonja Oshicora’s personal security detail was actively tracking. Sam’s activated a virus that has shut the city down. And apparently we’re now responsible for the Freezone having seized it in a popular uprising.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Enough,” muttered Petrovitch.

  “She has ruined everything!” Valentina slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “You had plans, da? I know you had plans even if I did not know what they were. I trusted you—still trust you to get us out of this, this mess. But best chances we had have gone. Because of her.”

  “I said, enough.” He dragged at his arm, and wondered if he could plug himself directly into the power socket set underneath the air-con. “Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy. We can change them; we were always going to have to change them. That’s not the problem.”

  “No, problem sits behind you.” Even furious, Valentina had no color to her face. It was her eyes that burned with bright fire. “She has betrayed you.”

  “Stop it now. I appreciate that we’ve all been living on adrenaline for the last few hours, but it’s nothing a massive fry-up and some mugs of coffee wouldn’t cure. Before anyone else says something they might regret, please take a moment to think about everything that’s happened, and more importantly, why.”

  “I know why. Your wife cannot keep her mouth shut.”

  “Yebani v’rot. If Maddy is guilty of anything, it’s trusting a millennia-old tradition of confidentiality between priest and penitent. I’m pissed off, too, but I’m trying to direct my anger in the right direction.”

  “Can I?” said Lucy in a very quiet voice. She struggled with her elbows to gain some extra space, and sat forward. “Sam, do you remember when we first met?”

  “I broke into your house. You were hiding in the bath.”

  “That’s not what I mean. The play. The school play I was supposed to be doing.”

  “To be fair, I had my hands full that day.” He twisted in his seat to see her better as she leaned over his shoulder. “Refresh my memory.”

  “Romeo and Juliet. You know,” and she quoted in a rush: “ ‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’ ”

  “Yeah, I know it. It’s better in the original Russian. So what?”

  She pointed at him. “Romeo.” Then at Madeleine. “Juliet.”

  Everybody else took a breath before starting their objections, and all stopped on the first syllable before grinding to a halt as their mental gears stalled.

  “It’s like, you know: two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. But what if Juliet hadn’t killed herself, and they’d lived together like a normal couple? Her family would have hated it. And his. The idea that they would have kissed and made up is stupid. They would have worked together to split them up, then gone back to stabbing each other in the street.”

  Petrovitch frowned. “Is this actually relevant? Because I’ve accidentally just organized a coup, and I could probably do with paying some attention to that.”

  “This is the whole reason for everything!” Lucy knew she wasn’t explaining herself well, and she grunted with annoyance. “Montagues and Capulets. You two have separated over Michael. But neither of you wants to make it permanent because you actually do love each other. So you need a push. Sonja Oshicora wants you, right?”

  “As uncomfortable as it makes me to admit it, yeah.” He didn’t feel able to meet anyone’s eye at that moment.

  “That means she needs Madeleine out of the way. How’s she going to do that? She can’t just kill her, because that won’t work. She needs you to hate her.” Lucy directed her forensic gaze at Madeleine. “This priest of yours: he wants you to go back to the Church. Is he going to get you to do that by killing Sam? Is he even going to try and kill Sam, knowing how well protected he is? No. What he can do is make you hate him.” She threw up her hands. “How come this is so obvious to me, but not to you bunch of emotionally retarded grown-ups? They’re working together. Sonja and the priest.”

  Petrovitch sat back around and stared straight ahead. “Oh, you have to be yebani joking. This whole thing has been contrived to…” His face set hard. “Sic sukam sim.”

  “Sam?” said Madeleine, bewildered.

  “I am not a piece of meat. I will not be owned by anyone. And I will absolutely not be the peshka in anyone’s game.” His heart was spinning fast, too fast: the tips of his fingers were tingling and his head felt like it was going to pop like an over-inflated balloon. He took several deep breaths and deliberately braked the turbine in his chest. Too hard. He felt fuzzy, almost fainting. It was almost as it was before he’d had the implant. “Chyort.”

  “Ge
t him out of the car. He’s crashing.”

  There was a sudden scramble around him, and he was dragged out and laid on the ground. He saw sky and cloud, and felt road and rubble. He was cold, colder than he’d ever been, like he’d been frozen and all these people leaning over him were defrosting his body with nothing more than good wishes and concerned looks.

  “No CPR! It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it work then?”

  “It’s not like there’s a panel I can pop open.”

  His T-shirt was pulled up, and the surgical tape that held the slim computer to his body was ripped free.

  “I don’t even know if I can access it. It’s not the rat.”

  “Give it to me. You’re panicking and we don’t have the time.”

  “Can you find anything?”

  “What’s it called?”

  “I don’t—wait: Sorenson. Search for Sorenson.”

  “Spelt right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Just stop pointing at the screen. No. No. No again. Wait.”

  “That slider. Put it halfway.”

  “There?”

  And the blood surged back through his body. His heart wasn’t designed to go from a standing start, but it did well enough. As his blood pressure returned to something approaching normal, Petrovitch grimaced and gurned.

  “I didn’t know I could do that,” he said eventually.

  “You turned your own heart off.”

  He blinked and tried to find the speaker: Madeleine. “Looks that way. I’m going to have to script up some sort of safety net for that.”

  She pushed the others aside and raised him into a sitting position. “Never do that again.”

  “What? It’s not like I haven’t died before.” He took a breath of fresh, cold air and found it didn’t hurt.

  Madeleine cuffed his head lightly. “And I was there for most of them, which is why I don’t want to go back to that.” She chewed at her lip. “You believe her, don’t you?”