Degrees of Freedom

by Simon Morden

  Petrovitch walked, head down, following the cracks like a labyrinth.

  He had to neutralize the Japanese work parties, convince them not to take sides, either his or Sonja’s. Then there were Sonja’s employees: they weren’t soldiers, but they probably thought of themselves as servants and felt they owed her their loyalty.

  They owed him loyalty too. He could exploit that. Old Man Oshicora had lost most of his staff, killed by the New Machine Jihad. The more recent hirings wouldn’t have a residual fealty, transferring allegiance from father to daughter.

  Her uniformed security guards—now that was going to be difficult, if not impossible. He had to find enough leverage to put himself between them and their boss, or he was going to have to do it the hard way.

  They could hold out for as long as the ammunition did, and storming the tower was going to result in a bloodbath. He’d do pretty much anything to avoid that.

  He walked, and when he reached a junction on the cracked concrete pad, he turned in an arbitrary direction. An idea slowly came to him, slower than it ought. It was hard to keep his thoughts in order when he was so very tired and kept being distracted by the fact of Sonja’s betrayal.

  Then he went slowly back to the main gates. Valentina’s car had gone, along with Lucy. Madeleine had also vanished, along with a couple of trucks and all those he’d called out. The workers in Regent’s Park were busy. The first of a fleet of ambulances whispered along the road and onto the dirt track that led inside.

  Tabletop was there, though. She was sitting in a truck cab, her eyes shut and her head resting on the upholstery. Petrovitch climbed up to the driver’s seat, by necessity using just his right hand to aid him, and slumped behind the wheel.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi.” She didn’t open her eyes. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Giving me a home.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I think I’ll enjoy being Irish.”

  “At least you’ll be able to remember it. No more mind-wipes. Promise.”

  “That’s good. Thought of something?”

  “Yeah. Doing it now.” He leaned back, wedging his knees against the steering wheel. “Divide and conquer. I’ve called everyone with relevant experience here, regardless of nationality. There are a whole bunch of nikkeijin who were cops, and the Japanese riot police were yebani nails. I’ve extended the call to everyone in Sonja’s security teams—it’s the only message they’ve had on them for a while, so they’ll notice. I’m also giving them the Al Jazeera interview, because they’ll have missed that the first time around.”

  “And if they don’t come over?”

  “We’ll seal the whole block off: it’s easily done, as there are major roads bounding the tower on each side. Then I’ll give them another call and appeal to their better natures.”

  “Still sounds like we’re going to have to fight.”

  “Maybe we will. There’s one thing I can try before that point though.” He closed his own eyes. It was tempting, so very tempting. Five minutes, that was all he’d need. “I’m just going to walk in and dare them to shoot me.”

  Now she was awake. “What?”

  “The one constant factor in all of this has been that Sonja will not let me be harmed. The arm thing, while that wasn’t going to kill me, I think she was genuinely angry with those who’d done that to me. It wasn’t meant to happen. Everything else—the bomb, Iguro—she could’ve had me finished in half a dozen different ways, but they’ve always held off. I bet you that if I’d announced my presence back at Container Zero just now, I could have walked out and no one would have fired. I didn’t have the yajtza to do it then, but I’m just going to have to man up and do it this time.”

  “You really think Madeleine’s going to let you do that?”

  “She’s not in charge,” said Petrovitch. “I am.”

  “And you’re worried about Oshicora’s crew shooting you?” Tabletop pursed her lips and stared out of the windshield. “It’s your wife you need to be scared of.”

  “Me and Michael have killed tens of thousands of people between us. If you think that’s inured me to killing a few hundred more, you’d be wrong. If anything, it’s persuaded me that victory doesn’t automatically go to the side with the lowest body count.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Sometimes there’s a better way of winning.”

  “Good luck with that. I only know one way.”

  “That’s because of the way you were made. Strange: there are a bunch of cardinals closeted in a room trying to work out if Michael’s alive, and yet none of them question our humanity, no matter how badly we’re put together.”

  They sat in silence for a while, watching the activity outside. The ambulances that had arrived earlier, bounced and swayed their way back out, and a group of workers congregated to watch them go.

  “There are days,” said Tabletop, “when I wonder who I was. Because I have no memories, all I have is how I react, and I don’t… I don’t like what I see. What was it that the Agency saw in me that made them think I’d make a good assassin? What did I do? Torture animals? Hurt people? Or did I just destroy them with a well-placed piece of gossip and watch while their lives imploded?”

  Petrovitch shifted in his seat, counting the number of volunteers who’d responded to his call. He felt humbled. “Maddy says I’m wrong to call you Tabletop. Tina calls you Fiona, and I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked you which you’d prefer. I just assumed.”

  “You’re not really Sam Petrovitch, are you? It’s not what your mother called you in the cradle, but you seem happy enough with what you have.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll pick a new name, one I’ve chosen myself. For now, I’ll stick with what I’ve got. It’s fine.”

  “Okay.” He reached for the door handle. “Here they come.”

  “Who?”

  “The new republic.” He glanced in the wing mirror, and frowned. “Yobany stos.”

  He kicked the door open and stepped out onto the footplate. There was a column of cars and trucks slowly rumbling down Marylebone. Valentina was at the head, and Lucy was sitting in the open window, holding a roof bar with one hand and a flag with the other.

  The flag was red, and it wasn’t alone.

  There were others, fluttering from aerials, wipers, radiator grilles, held by hand or tied to makeshift poles. A sea of red.

  Petrovitch dropped to the ground, and Valentina pulled up next to him.

  “What the huy have you done?”

  “Hmm,” she said, not looking apologetic for a single moment. “We are having revolution, da?”

  “Do you know what this looks like?”

  “Looks like popular uprising of people against oppressors. Red is traditional color for such occasions. Is most visual, and does not show blood.” She turned the engine off and pointed to the back seat. There were boxes of black spheres, all chased with thin silver lines. “Since we have bombs, perhaps anarchist black would have been more appropriate.”

  “But I like red,” said Lucy, scrambling out of the window. She headed for the back of the flatbed to raise the standard there.

  “It’s as if a whole world of cultural meaning has cried out in terror and been suddenly silenced.” He tilted his face to the sky and groaned. “When this gets broadcast, I’m going to have some really difficult questions to answer.”

  Valentina got out and looked back at the row of vehicles coming to a halt behind her. “When? They are already here.”

  “Terrific.” Petrovitch watched people streaming onto the road and toward him. Mixed in with them was the glint of camera lenses and the parasol shadows of held-high satellite dishes.

  He looked at the traffic patterns, the density of mobile phones, the bandwidth use across the Freezone. He turned around to greet another cavalcade coming down Euston Road.

  They all had red flags too.

  “Tina?”

  “No. Is good. Shows we are united. Speak with one v
oice, act with one mind.” She took him by the arm and led him toward where Lucy stood, a modern-day Marianne. “Also, not shooting friends is good. Flag means we recognize our own.”

  “At the risk of polarizing the rest of the planet.” Petrovitch accepted the bunk-up onto the truck. “This is not meant to be political.”

  “Then you are deluding yourself,” said Valentina. “This has always been political. All this getting rid of old order, standing up to capitalist aggression, rights for artificial intelligence, starting own country…”

  “My own country?”

  “Of course. That is why we all have Irish passport, da? You will have freedom to do whatever you want.” She climbed up alongside him and reached back down into the pressing crowd for another hastily made flag. “This is revolution. Where is end? I do not know. All I know, this is beginning and we must be brave.”

  28

  They had enough people to seal off the streets: down Portland Place and along the Euston Road, covering Tottenham Court Road, and the south side of the square, Mortimer Street and Goodge Street.

  It meant that everyone was set back from any immediate confrontation while confining the Oshicora loyalists to a small area. There’d been defections to Petrovitch, but not as many as he would have hoped. He’d have preferred them all to come over, and that would have been that, but no.

  And Madeleine wasn’t happy at all.

  “There is no good reason for you to do this.”

  “There is every good reason for me to do this. She is not going to shoot me.” Petrovitch watched as Madeleine reloaded his gun for him.

  “All it takes is one—just one—nervous kid with his finger on the trigger and I’m a widow. I’m not going to let that happen.” She slapped the magazine back home and presented him with the pistol’s butt.

  He took it from her and jammed it down the waistband of his trousers.

  “I’m calling her and I’m arranging safe passage through the barricades they’ve put up. If we go in mob-handed, it’s going to be carnage.”

  She grabbed him by the scaffolding on his arm and pulled him somewhere more private. That meant marching him across to the church that stood on the corner, and under the blackened and dead branches of the trees that flanked it.

  “I don’t want to lose you. Not now.”

  Petrovitch reached out and slid his finger into one of the holes in her impact armor, scooping out some of the gel and holding it up so she couldn’t help but see it. “You didn’t give me that choice, did you?”

  “You’ve got other people.”

  “Oh, okay. Which one do you approve of to take your place? Tina? Happy with that? Or Tabletop? Want to imagine me and her together?”

  “You know I…”

  “Or both together? They could have me on a time-share, and I could hope neither of them got jealous enough to put a blade in the other’s guts.”

  “Sam, I don’t mean,” she started, but he interrupted her again.

  “What the huy do you mean?” He squared up to her, shaking his arm free and baring his teeth. “You are not a replaceable part. You never were. Yobany stos, I missed you. Every night, every day, no let-up. I have friends, I have a daughter, but you’re my wife.”

  “Then listen to me. You’re going to get yourself killed, and I’m going to destroy myself with guilt. I wasn’t there for all that time, and now I face losing you forever. You cannot go out there and expect them not to shoot you. It’s insane.” Her face had gone white, and she was shaking. She was scared, pure and simple. Terrified.

  “Sit down,” said Petrovitch. “Come and sit down.”

  The steps up to the church porch were close by, and they sat together, side by side, hips pressed against each other even though there was plenty of space.

  “Look. I’ve got people queuing up to throw themselves in front of me and take the bullet meant for me. You, Tina, Tabletop, Lucy even in her own cackhanded way, and you’re only just ahead of a couple of thousand Freezone workers who seem determined to follow me, lemming-like, off the precipice. I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone to die because of me.”

  “We’re doing it because we love you.”

  “You’re doing it because you’re all bat-shit crazy,” he grumbled. “I’ve had enough. I’m taking some decisions for myself, and I don’t have to put them in front of a committee to get them ratified. I’m no one’s shestiorka. If someone’s going down because I’ve screwed up, I want that someone to be me.”

  “I don’t. I’d rather it was anyone else but you.”

  “Yeah. I’d rather it was like that, too, but I’m going to stick my middle finger up at Fate and tell her to idi v’zhopu.” He shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “You could stay safe, here with me.”

  “And what happens to Sonja? Is there anyone who can do something about her, without people bayoneting each other in the street? Anyone but me?”

  Madeleine started to cry soundlessly. Fat tears dropped into her lap. “Don’t do this.”

  “There’s no one else. We both know that.” He stood and kissed the top of her head, where her shaved head ended and her mane of plaited hair started.

  “At least take my armor.” She pulled at her sleeves until the Velcro fastenings at the back started to part. She was half out of it in seconds, clawing at the straps that held it in place, as if her speed would help protect him.

  “Maddy, stop.” He put his hand on one side of the stiff collar, and moved it to cover her shoulder again. Under the armor, she wore a pale skinsuit, and it was hellishly distracting. “Just stop. I can barely stand up as it is, and I’m not going to fight. I’m going to talk. Impact armor isn’t going to help.”

  “I have to do something.”

  “Be here when I get back? That would be good.” He kissed her again, and made the long walk back across the road.

  Valentina’s eyes narrowed as he approached. “Problem?”

  “Yeah. We’re doing it anyway. Load me up.”

  She had the box of singularity bombs out next to her, and she hooked four onto the exposed metalwork of his arm. Individually, they didn’t weigh that much: together, with their batteries and timers, they dragged all the harder.

  “Here,” said Lucy, pressing a bottle of water on him. She’d already cracked the seal on the top. “Anything else you need?”

  “Vodka?”

  “I don’t know.” She was suddenly flustered. “We can get some.”

  “Joke,” he said. “I’m not serious. Well, not that serious. I shouldn’t really be drunk in charge of implosives, but a quick slug of the hard stuff would’ve gone down well. No matter.”

  He patted his pockets in case he’d forgotten something, but he didn’t have anything in them anyway. His passport was in his courier bag, in Valentina’s car. Madeleine’s was there too. He hadn’t told her. If things went badly, he never would.

  Too late now.

  “Okay.” He started out down the street toward the tower, past the two groups of armed men and women clustered at each corner behind their hastily erected barricades. He stopped when he crossed the road markings and looked back. Tabletop, Valentina and Lucy seemed uncertain as to what to do next: one or other of them was with him almost all the time.

  “What?” called Tabletop.

  “Aren’t you supposed to wish me luck?”

  “You don’t believe in luck. You don’t leave anything to chance.”

  “Yeah, well.” He turned again. He could see the tower, its strange top-heavy shape and thin waist surrounded by microwave dishes. “First time for everything.”

  The street was narrow, with three- and four-story houses. The ground floors had mostly been turned into shops, and steel shutters covered their windows. The Jihad had passed through one way, and the Outies the other, but the damage had been repaired. It was mostly as it had been, except for the line of cars parked across the street further down.

  He undid the bottle with his teeth
and spat the cap out. He drank half the water. It was a poor substitute for coffee. He unlocked Sonja’s phone and called her up.

  “Hey. I’m walking down Cleveland Street toward your lines. No one’s going to take a pot-shot at me, are they?”

  “Sam? What’s going on?” She sounded lost.

  “Well now. At the risk of sounding like a pre-Armageddon cop show, you’re surrounded. I’ve a few thousand armed ex-soldiers and police blocking off every road away from the tower, and they know what to do if I don’t come back. One way or another, this ends today. How it ends is up to you, but I thought it worthwhile to try and talk our way to a solution rather than start another war.”

  “I… I can see you.”

  Petrovitch’s eyes tried to zoom in all the way to the top of the structure, but the reflections of sky off the slabs of glass defeated him. He raised the bottle of water anyway, and kept walking.

  “So what’s it going to be? Can we talk?”

  “We could always talk, but you never needed to be actually there, did you?”

  “No. This time, though, it’s important to do it face to face. We need to see the windows of each other’s soul. No lies. Just the truth, and I don’t care how uncomfortable that is for either of us.”

  The barricade of cars was just ahead, and he found he’d collected several glowing red laser dots that buzzed around his chest. It looked like most of the shooters wouldn’t be able to hit a double-decker at ten paces, but as Madeleine had pointed out, it’d only take one bullet.

  He stopped and looked at the figures crouching behind the trunks and hoods, fixing each one of them with a hard stare. He saw them nervous, panicky even. Not a good combination with firearms.

  “They’re not going to shoot me, are they?” he asked Sonja.

  “They know not to. Whatever happens.”

  “I suppose I’ve bet my life on longer odds,” he said. He shrugged and kept on going until he was on one side of a red family-sized car, and the Oshicora guards on the other. One man lowered his rifle, and with a little shake of his head, told his colleagues to do the same.

  “Petrovitch-san. We cannot let you pass.”