Degrees of Freedom

by Simon Morden

  “No. No, I don’t. But because I love you and I know you have my best interests at heart, I’m agreeing to something that I don’t want to do, only because you want me to do it. I kind of figured that was what we promised when we made all those vows in front of that lying shit of a priest.”

  She stared down at him. “Sam…”

  “Yeah, I know. The first fuck in a year and I fold like a pack of cards.”

  Then she hit him, as gently as she could manage, cuffing him around the ear before dragging him into her embrace and lifting him off the ground.

  “Chyort, put me down while I’ve still got some ribs in one piece.”

  She did. “You’re impossible.”

  “No. Just highly improbable, but no one ever said it was easy being married to a statistical outlier.” He straightened the metalwork surrounding his arm. “Go. Tell them we go live in a matter of minutes.”

  Tabletop called from inside the van. “Sam, we’ve got him.”

  Petrovitch glanced back around, and watched Madeleine’s leather-clad body running up Park Lane.

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m listening.”

  “Sam!”

  He finally turned his attention to Lucy’s console, where a familiar face was peering out at them, then to the series of empty power sockets screwed to the bulkhead next to her. “If you can find the right adaptor, I’ll have some of that.”

  “Your courier bag’s still in the car,” said Lucy, sliding the headphones from her neck and onto her chair.

  “Thank you.” He took her place and pressed one of the cans against his ear.

  [I have linked with a satellite], said Michael, [and am beginning to access the Freezone network.]

  “Good work.” Petrovitch maneuvered the lip mic to somewhere approaching close. “Bring it all back online, then we can pick and choose which bits to shut back down.”

  [The virus you activated: not bad, for a human.] The face on the screen lowered, as if bowing.

  “I had help. Even though the poor kid ended up in the slammer, he still thinks it was worth it.” He took the courier bag from a breathless Lucy, and pulled out a nest of wires. “Huy, I don’t know.”

  [We have power, even though the virus is trying to re-migrate back into the nodes I have cleared. Holding it at bay is requiring considerable resources.]

  “Yeah, it does that. It makes it very effective if you don’t quarantine the clean system from the infected. Just strip it out: we won’t need it again. There’ll be isolated machines that’ll come on later, and they’ll still carry the virus, but I’m figuring you can inoculate the live network against that.”

  [It will take some time. As I said, not bad for a human.]

  He had the first tickle from the palmtop strapped to his side: it had found a signal.

  “Result.”

  Between them, Lucy and Tabletop had disentangled the power adaptors from each other. One went in on his left, into his computer, and one on the right, into the batteries.

  [We have control.] Michael seemed to turn away briefly before staring back out at Petrovitch. [We also have several problems that require urgent attention.]

  “No shit, Sherlock.” He could move his left arm again, and he was happy. “Tell me what Sonja Oshicora’s mob are doing.”

  [The picture is hard to establish. One moment.] Michael paused, listening, seeing, tracking. [They have mostly regrouped at the Telecom Tower. Now they are able to communicate with distant units, there may be coordinated action.]

  “Some of those won’t be following Sonja’s orders anymore, and after I’ve had my say, all she’ll be left with is a hard core of Oshicora idealists.”

  [Sasha, why did she turn on you? I had every indication that she would do almost anything for you, and you only had to ask. People are unreliable and inconstant.] Michael made himself blink. [Except for you.]

  “Yeah, that’s me. Consistent to the point of predictable. And that’s exactly the exploit Sonja used. I’m going to talk to her now, and see what she has to say for herself.”

  Petrovitch knew her mobile number. He could tell where the phone was by chasing it across the network until he’d pin-pointed the location, on the ground floor of the tower. She wasn’t alone: the area was thick with signals and other traffic, calls coming in and out at a furious rate. He could hear her, shouting orders with a voice that rang with rising panic. He could have interrupted her conversation at any time by hijacking the handset, but he noticed that she had another phone on her, live but dormant.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone that had been wired to the bomb. There’d been only one number in the call history. He took the headphones off and sat back in the chair, holding the phone to his ear.

  Sonja stopped talking. The sound of muffled ringing came over the open connection. The call timed out when she didn’t answer, but he was absolutely certain he had her attention.

  He dialed again. The call was picked up, and he could hear the sound of chaos in the background. Close up was the trembling of her breath.

  “Hello, Sonja.”

  “Sam. I can explain.”

  “You don’t need to. The mere fact I’ve reached you on this number is pretty much all the explanation I can stomach at the moment. I trusted you, and you betrayed me. More than that, though. You abused your position of authority and used resources meant for building up the Freezone to bring it to its knees. So let’s forget what you tried to do to me and Maddy for a moment, and concentrate on that.” He took a deep breath, and adjusted his grip on the phone which was threatening to slip out from between his sweat-slicked fingers.

  “Please…”

  He lost it. He was standing, shouting down the phone, oblivious to everything else. “Past’ zabej, suka derganaya. Do you know what you’ve done? The whole of civilization is hanging by a yebani thread and you’re hacking at it with a pair of rusty scissors. So you just shut up and listen to me. You are relieved of your duties. You are under arrest. You will surrender all weapons and you will place your private army under the control of the interim Freezone authority, which just happens to be me. You will stay in your tower until someone comes to read you your rights and put you in front of a court. Which is a huy sight more mercy than the idiot followers of the New Machine Jihad ever got. You are now irrelevant to the running of the Freezone. No one will follow your orders. You have no right to act on behalf of or represent the Freezone in any matter. You are deposed, Madam ex-President.”

  At that moment, the first pile-driver started off in Hyde Park, filling the air with its rhythmic thump. It sounded like victory.

  “Hear that? That’s what we think of your state of emergency. The Freezone is back at work, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. The future’s coming through, Sonja, and you’re not on board.”

  He stabbed his thumb down on the phone, and held the device in his hand, looking for somewhere to throw it. Cool fingers curled over his.

  “Sam,” said Lucy, “evidence?”

  “Do pizdy. If she was here, I’d shove it up her zhopu.” He let her take it, though, and picked up the headphones again. “Michael, shut Sonja down. Her whole operation. I’ll talk to them in a minute when I’ve calmed down.”

  He closed his eyes.

  [Done. What next?]

  “Hanratty. I need to talk to Hanratty.”

  24

  Petrovitch had memorized the number a long time ago, and had never called it. He’d never needed to. He kept his promises, and if Hanratty couldn’t, then Hanratty would be history.

  A token of their agreement had arrived by courier: it had told Petrovitch that all was well and as it should be. That, though, had been two days ago, and he couldn’t be certain of anything anymore, least of all the reception he’d get from Hanratty. He steeled himself as he placed the call. Either Hanratty would answer and everything would be ready, or he would be ignored and he’d be left to scrabble a last-minute plan together out of the tatt
ers of earlier, better ones.

  He’d barely pushed the last digit into the line before the connection was made.

  “What the bloody hell is going on?” Hanratty’s comb-over was flapping in a Spanish breeze. He looked like he hadn’t slept for two days, and he’d probably been drinking the whole time.

  “We’re going early, Mr. Hanratty. That’s what’s going on.”

  “Christ on a bike, man. The last news we had out of the Freezone is that you’ve got your own nuke and you’re threatening to set it off: I need more explanation than ‘early.’ ”

  “Al Jazeera is interviewing me in five minutes. It’s going out live, and it’ll answer all the questions you and your colleagues have. Now shut up and listen, because I’ve had a piss-awful day and it’s not over yet. I received your package. Are you ready to receive mine?”

  Hanratty tried to calm his hair, but his face was still ruddy. He looked like a Galway farmer—unsurprising, since that was what he had been once, thirty years ago.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to do this, Petrovitch. Before, it looked like a good idea. Now, I don’t know.”

  “Do you want your yebani country back or not?” Petrovitch’s avatar leaned forward, growing on Hanratty’s screen until he filled it edge to edge. “Or do you want to leave it a byword for a contaminated wasteland and let it fade from memory like Japan surely will?”

  “You know I do. You know I’ve staked everything on this. I just don’t know whether you’re the right man anymore.”

  “I appreciate that you’ve got last-minute jitters, but everything is as it was before. I’m the same person you made that deal with six months ago, Hanratty. You knew who I was then, warts and all.”

  “Ah, Jesus. I don’t like the changes, Petrovitch. I don’t like them at all.”

  “I’ve got enough money just to buy you out. You know that, don’t you? I’ve got billions in the bank I can use to lever billions more, and you’ve lost your precious land. Tell me what the point is of being Taoiseach in name only, leading a people who can never go home?”

  “Ah, c’mon.” And Petrovitch knew that Hanratty was just bluster now, even though at that moment he needed Hanratty far more than Hanratty needed him. The trick was not to show fear.

  “I don’t want to keep Ireland permanently, but I’ll keep it out of your reach for as long as your grandkids live.” He paused for effect. “Tell me you’re ready and we’ll do it.”

  Hanratty gritted his teeth. “We’re ready.”

  “Show me the address.”

  Hanratty held up a scrap of paper: a bill for tapas going one way, and eight groups of four characters separated from each other by a colon. “I have no idea what the hell this means.”

  Petrovitch captured the image and reviewed it so he knew he could reread the code. “Eat it.”

  Hanratty reluctantly pushed the paper into his mouth, chewed for a bit, then upended a bottle of golden beer between his lips. He didn’t come up for air until there was nothing but the last cascades of foam clinging to the inside of the glass. He burped roundly behind his fist. “Now I suppose you want me to release what’s in the diplomatic bag, don’t you?”

  “I could hack it. I’ve got a friendly AI who’s very good at that. But I’d rather you were completely entangled in our sordid little affair.”

  Hanratty pulled a keyboard toward him and started pecking out keys using one finger and with his tongue caught at the corner of his mouth. “There. And may God have mercy on our souls.”

  “Your confidence in me knows no bounds, Hanratty. But congratulations: you just bought yourself and everyone you represent a stake in the future. I’ll be in touch.”

  He cut the connection, and immediately sent Michael the screen-captured code.

  [An IP address.]

  “Go. It’s a quantum computer. A gift from the Irish government. Get yourself out of that yebani tomb and tell me when you’ve done it. We have bandwidth to spare, so don’t hold back.” Petrovitch delved into his courier bag for the diplomatic pouch at the very bottom.

  The lock had sprung on the envelope-sized bag, and he shook the contents out into his hand: a series of plastic cards, all with different photographs holographed on.

  Lucy was the closest, sitting behind him, watching the monitors that showed other news networks.

  “This is yours. Don’t lose it.” Petrovitch shuffled the cards until he found Lucy’s unsmiling face.

  “What, what is this? And where did you find that picture?” She looked at the card, and turned it to every angle.

  “It’s your new passport. If you’ve noticed, it means that not only are you a citizen of the Irish Republic, but you’re also a diplomatic agent as defined by the Vienna Convention. It grants you immunity from prosecution for pretty much everything, though you can be expelled from the host country.” He shuffled the cards again. “So try and keep your nose clean, or I’ll kick you out.”

  She looked at him, then at the laminated card in her hands, then at the stack of similar plastic rectangles trapped between Petrovitch’s dirty fingers.

  “There’s one for everyone.”

  “Yeah.” He turned the cards so they faced him. He found his own, and barely recognized his picture. “I said I’d take care of you. And Tabletop, and Tina, and look, here’s Maddy’s. And this, this would have been Sonja’s. But I don’t think we’ll be needing that anymore.”

  It was hard to destroy, but eventually his manic folding backward and forward along the same line over and over again yielded the start of a fracture line. He tore the card in two and flicked the pieces out into the road.

  The effort had left him breathless.

  “Feel better?” asked Lucy.

  “Chyort, yeah.” He handed the remaining cards to her. “Pass these around. I need to get ready for my fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “Sure.” She hopped off her chair and squeezed past him. “Sam. What does it mean, though? Why Irish? Why not, I don’t know, Finland?”

  “Because the Irish government in exile have asked me to set up a Freezone over there, try and clean up enough of it that people are going to want to move back. And rather than do it all on my own, I thought I could do with a bit of company.” He smiled at her. “You’re all invited. It’ll be a bit like here, but with less city and more rain. We’re working on a longer timescale, too.”

  Lucy jumped to the ground. “How long?”

  “A hundred years.”

  “That’s…”

  “It’ll do. Barely any time at all, really, to do everything I want to.” It was all starting to catch up with him. He’d stopped, and it wasn’t just his batteries that were drained. “Lucy, I’m tired of this. Tired of trying to fix things that shouldn’t be broken in the first place. I want to make something new that doesn’t have to be squeezed into an earlier pattern.”

  “Somewhere you can get breakfast without getting shot at.”

  “Damn right. That’s going to be the first clause in the constitution. No gunplay without a full fry-up.” He snorted. “Frying pans, not fragmentation grenades. Preach it, sister.”

  She moved closer, reached her arms up and around him. “Thanks, Dad.”

  He pushed her away, “Go. Go now, before I embarrass myself in front of a global audience.”

  She trotted off toward Tabletop, brandishing the passports, and he turned back to the screen in front of him, catching sight of his reflection in the momentarily blank surface.

  He looked like crap, and no amount of stage make-up was going to cover it.

  [I have transferred myself to the new location. Thank you.]

  “My first and last thought every day were for you. I let you down and wanted to make up for that. You’re safe for the moment, at any rate. But look, I want to try something different now: there’s a bunch of guys from the Vatican who’d love to have a word with you. If we want to stop running and start living, you’re going to need to convince them that you’re not just intelligent, capable
of creative independent thought and have a unique personality. You need to convince them that you’re alive.”

  [Alive. As in meat-alive?]

  “As in ensouled. Their primary goal is to establish whether you’re a secondary creation—just a smart machine that can emulate life—or a primary creation. One that has been animated by the very breath of God.”

  [That is a very metaphysical distinction, Sasha, which has no practical purpose.]

  “Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? In my new republic, you’ll be accorded all the rights and responsibilities any citizen would have. For other, unenlightened nations, a ruling from a bunch of cardinals that happen to speak on behalf of around a third of the planet will come in very handy. Especially when it comes to overturning a couple of UN resolutions. If you’re alive, they can’t kill you.”

  [I understand. What if I fail?]

  “I’m getting perilously short of Plan Bs. All I can say is don’t screw up.” Petrovitch called up Madeleine. “Hey.”

  “I’m here. Sam…”

  “Yeah, if their Eminences aren’t going for this, then I’m going to come down there myself and kick some serious arse.”

  “That’s not… it’ll keep. The Congregation are all here. They’ve agreed to your proposal. They want to reserve the right to make an interim ruling; definitive but not necessarily permanent.”

  “Not happy, but I’ll take it. What I really want is my tanks parked on the moral high ground. We can shell the opposition once they’re up there. Have they got a computer? One I haven’t wrecked?”

  “They all have palmtops, Sam. You’re not talking about a bunch of dinosaurs here.”

  “We’re going to have to disagree on something. It may as well be that. Tell them to hold.” He switched his attention. “Michael: showtime. Geolocate the signals at the Jesuit mission on Mount Street. Give them your undivided attention and remember, this is your interview for entrance into the human race. Good luck.”

  [No pressure, then.]

  “Hah.”

  He felt the AI’s presence dwindle to a pinpoint. He knew that, in the future, the record of Michael’s conversation with the cardinals would become an historical document of infinite worth. For good or ill. And it was entirely out of his hands.