Amon knew it. Although he’d always been ashamed to admit to his extremist left-wing belief that breathing and swallowing didn’t really count as volitional, he had sensed somehow that Barrow agreed with him on this point. Now he had confirmation from the man himself and felt a pang of guilt for what he had done to him.
“Was that the only reason for your downfall?” asked Amon. “I mean, I can see that those policies are controversial and the faction could have put up a big fuss, maybe even brought Moderate Choice down. But assassinating your identity strikes me as extreme. The costs are too great and the risks of failure too high, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely. I completely agree. But there is a deeper layer to my plan that concerned them even more—or so I thought at first. You see, all of these different nationalization policies, as much as I agreed with them, were primarily just smokescreens for another, far more important, piece of legislation I was secretly preparing. To gather enough funds to compensate the owners of blinking for their losses caused by its nationalization, I was forced to raise credicrime fines across the board and I was planning to ratchet them up again for the nationalization of swallowing and breathing. I pretended that these were just temporary fiscal measures, but even after the deals were all concluded I intended to keep the fines high and maintain the increased inflow of government income. The faction acted as though they were opposed to these measures in and of themselves, but someone must have leaked the actual plan for which I enacted them as well, because that’s the only way I could think to explain why they might threaten me. I was going to divert the extra funds to set up a GATA-run venture charity that would provide supplies to the bankdead unconditionally, that is, irrespective of whether they were suitable to provide babies or not. Moreover, the supplies were to be more plentiful and of a more durable kind than usual to ensure that everyone here had a more respectable quality of life.”
“Government redistribution!” cried Rick in exasperation. “In the Free Era! You’re joking?”
Amon was just as stunned. Though it seemed reasonable enough now that he’d lived in the District of Dreams for a while, anyone in the Free World would see it as just plain barbaric. The government’s only roles were to make sure that Free Citizens always paid for their actions and that owners got their due. The ideal of justice was to have everyone getting the freedom they had earned, nothing more, nothing less. Magnanimity and social planning could only be a hindrance to its realization since they would decrease the freedom of those who had earned it for the sake of those who had not.
“No, of course not. I would never joke about something so serious and integral to the good will of humankind. I was doing what I could for the sake of those poor souls who, as I saw it, needed help the most. Though undoubtedly I was going against the grain. So no surprise that the opposition and the right-wing faction in Moderate Choice were just sizzling in their own vitriol to eliminate me when they caught word of what I was thinking. They lacked the evidence to go public and blackmail me because I’d been careful not to create any official documents or records that could link the plan back to me. But through certain information channels—I had my own spies placed within the faction you see—I intercepted messages expressing apoplectic disagreement with the redistribution and I knew they were biding their time for an opportunity to oust me.
“So after the message had exploded, I assumed it was either this faction or Absolute Choice that was responsible. But for several reasons I wasn’t particularly concerned. First of all, I had accumulated enough inconvenient secrets over the years to devastate my opponents in both parties and had communicated to all of them that I had arranged for a close aide to disclose them should anything happen to me. And even if I did accede to their demands, coming out as a nostie was not incompatible with my strategies. In fact, I had already considered organizing such a scandal myself. Someone would leak a tidbit to the media that suggested I was a dandy nostie. I would deny it at first, until the location of my separate residence in Tsukuda was ‘discovered’ and the report would show footage of the exterior, which as you know looks so much like a nostie lair the public was guaranteed to demand a tour of the interior. Eventually, I would organize a press conference and admit that I was a nostie. My election strategists had determined that my ratings were high enough in the polls that the scandal would do little harm and my plan was to use my celebrity status to extol the virtues of analog detritus. If several other idols owned by lobby groups that support Moderate Choice also came out of the nostie closet, the media would be forced to have a discussion about anadeto’s place in society and gradually it might become accepted, even rebellious and cool. At least that was what I hoped, and I’m still confident that it would have worked if not for what happened to me …”
Amon remembered how eloquently Barrow had defended anadeto and nostieism in his spa and imagining him doing the same on the news in the simpler, more accessible register he used in public, he could see that Barrow was probably right.
“So I was confident that I could out-duel my opponents with scandals if it came down to it. However, my strategists warned me that the timing wasn’t right for me to come out. It was more prudent, they said, to do it after winning the election, not during the run-up, and voting day was only the following month. Losing the election was not merely a matter of sacrificing my own personal political victory, no.” Barrow’s voice gained an emotive lilt that seemed to trill warm sympathy through Amon’s ear and into his chest. “By stepping down at that particular time, not only would I be giving up on my chance to help the bankdead through my policies, but I would be giving in to an Absolute Choice plan to harm them.”
“What’s this?” demanded Ty. With his tricycle laid on its side, he had been polishing it with a flaking rag, keeping one ear tilted towards the conversation, but now turned to scowl at Barrow, his craggy brow creasing. “You expect us to believe this bullshit? Since when do politics have any connection to us? Everyone knows it’s the MegaGloms who decide how everything goes.”
“Absolutely. Much is decided by the corporations backstage. But whoever was behind the policies I tried to combat, you are feeling their effects. For example, the supply reduction that has indirectly led to your being here in the Gifted Triangle, talking to me right now, is no doubt a direct result of them. As you know, Absolute Choice wants to make all autonomic processes—from heartbeating to heat regulation—chosen and commodifiable. That is their stated platform. However, my agents happened to intercept a video compilation outlining their unstated agendas, promoted especially by their current leader, Sawano Yoshinoi. The most worrisome of those were the segments describing a bankdeath camp ‘clean up’ to realize a ‘slum-free world,’ though there was no discussion of alleviating poverty. This proposal, veiled as it was in technocratic euphemism, suggested some sort of atrocity was brewing, and as I could not conscionably allow it to happen, whatever exactly it was, there was no way I intended to admit to embezzlement for the sake of my nostieism or to resign from office. If I stepped down at that particular juncture, Absolute Choice was guaranteed to take GATA, especially considering that my preferred successor in Moderate Choice—Thierry Kodama—is like me disadvantaged by being ethnically non-Japanese, but lacks a certain way with words that, not to be braggadocio, I’m sure you agree I possess.
“I came to this conclusion fairly quickly after my eyes were hacked and I had discussed the incident with my closest advisers. I immediately ordered some of my bodyguards to search my residence and then left for a conference, feeling confident of my decision to reject their demands and well prepared to outmaneuver the perpetrators if it came down to it. But I was soon given new reason to worry. It was a busy day so it wasn’t until around noon that I had a chance to read the message from my guards about what they had discovered. It seemed there was a tiny parasite clinging to my bedclothes and this had facilitated the hacking into my BodyBank at short range.”
Amon immediately exchanged a disgusted look with Rick th
at shared the thought, just like the parasite that infected us.
“Arranging to have this parasite snuck into my bedroom and onto my person was no cheap operation. A sophisticated illegal device would have had to be designed and given to one of my aides, who would have had to be bribed. I was clearly up against people who were on a different level in terms of funding and power compared to the politicians I was used to grappling with, and this started to make me feel incredibly vulnerable.
“Now, as you may know, the two main political parties derive about 99 percent of their funding from the MegaGloms of the Twelve And One and another 0.9 percent or so from private donors who work as executives at these MegaGloms or their subsidiaries. Most citizens in the bronze search class are unaware of this, but the SpawnU Consortium, made up of six MegaGloms plus Fertilex, tends to support Moderate Choice, while the Philanthropy Syndicate, made up of the remaining six MegaGloms, supports Absolute Choice. With politics almost exclusively funded by corporations, elections are dramatized proxy disputes between competing lobbies. Political positions disadvantageous to all, or at least most, industries are eliminated from public discourse by default, and only those legislations beneficial to some but not other industries are debated. This of course pushes all discussion to the middle of the road where the various interests can compromise and controversial policies can be decided by negotiation between the lobbies behind the scenes. If there was opposition to my plan from powerful interests, I would have expected campaign contributions to flow into Moderate Choice’s coffers and for one of our members to tell me we had decided to give it up. That is standard procedure. Hacking and intimidation are simply not how the lobbies choose to influence legislative process, mostly because the fines are just too expensive to make it worthwhile. So this didn’t seem like any lobby I knew and if it wasn’t then I had no idea who I was dealing with or how to deal with them. Furthermore, if they were willing to spend this amount of money just to frighten me, then clearly they saw me as a significant obstacle and would be willing to go much further to get rid of me. The threat, I could be sure, had not been an empty one.
“I wanted to give a face to this monster that was emerging, but my usual information sources were either proving useless or too slow, so I decided to contact the PhisherKing. He and his Phishers were able to trace the hack to a group calling themselves the Gyges Circle. Their details were sketchy, but apparently this was a highly secretive partnership between top-level MegaGlom executives. A number of such associations exist where powerful individuals cooperate to advance their personal objectives. However, the strange thing about this one was the combination of its members; apparently, it was composed of execs from the Philanthropy Syndicate together with Anisha Birla. The conundrum here, as I’m sure you see, is that Anisha was the heir to Fertilex, which is the leading member of the SpawnU Consortium, and the interests of the SpawnU Consortium, not to mention Fertilex itself, are at direct odds with those of the Syndicate. The SpawnU Consortium depends for its human resources on Fertilex’s order-made babies, while the Philanthropy Syndicate works actively to resist the Fertilex monopoly by extracting resources from the bankdeath camps. The idea that execs on opposing ends of the lobby spectrum would band together was impossible for me to accept. What could the alliance possibly be for?
“Now I could understand why the Philanthropy Syndicate would be opposed to me. Their members owned blinking, swallowing, and breathing, and I would be depriving them of profits by nationalizing these assets. Their income from the Charity Gift Economy would also drop since my government-funded charity would reduce resource yield and my fine increases would raise Delivery’s operating costs. It is, after all, precisely because they oppose such policies that the Syndicate funds Absolute Choice and opposes Moderate Choice. But the participation of Anisha, and by extension Fertilex, in the Gyges Circle, was an enigma. It was in Fertilex’s interest to destroy the CG Economy altogether and decreasing its profitability only worked in the MegaGlom’s favor, which is one of the main reasons it and the rest of the SpawnU Consortium support Moderate Choice. I just couldn’t see what could have brought Anisha into the fold of this clandestine group. There should have been no common ground for cooperation.”
“What about the Birla inheritance?” said Rick. “That must have something to do with Anisha getting together with them. I mean, she was the surprise heir and her parents died the day before the Gyges Circle took you out—on the same day we crashed Kitao! You must have considered that?”
“Of course. I had a discussion with my advisors about what bearing the surprise transfer of Fertilex’s executive control to the younger sister might have had on her choice to join up with the Birlas’ traditional rivals and on their decision to intimidate me, but none of us could draw any explicit connections. At the time I was too busy dealing with the threat to my person to investigate the Birla parents’ accident through my own sources, so I have nothing to add that wasn’t already on the news. My suspicion is that Anisha was involved with the Gyges Circle much earlier but that, once her parents died, she gained enough Freedom to start putting their plans into action. What those plans are aside from eliminating me, and I’m guessing you two as well given that you’re here, I have no idea. But, as you point out, the connection with the inheritance seems clear.”
What Barrow said made sense to Amon, as it fit with everything he had puzzled out about the conspiracy. If the copy of his own AT readout that Amon had received from the PhisherKing was accurate, the fines for the identity murder he’d committed against Barrow—and most likely for a variety of related crimes including Archivist record forgeries and Sekido’s later attempt to ID assassinate Amon himself—had been paid for by a Fertilex subsidiary called Atupio. Presumably, then, Atupio was a front company that had been set up to disguise the activities of the Gyges Circle and that the inheritance had enabled Anisha to fund.
A thought occurred to Amon and he turned to Rick. “This reminds me of something Sekido mentioned to both of us.” Rick nodded for him to continue. “That big project close to the Executive Council he kept hinting at. He told me several times that I might become an assistant to it. Anisha seemed to be involved too, in the guise of a GATA recruiter. Could that have been the Gyges Circle?”
“I would guess it was,” said Barrow. “I mentioned earlier that someone in my cabinet leaked my breathing and swallowing nationalization plan. I suspected Sekido because he was my only minister, as far as I knew, that was involved with the radical faction, as I had appointed him as Liquidation Minister to appease them. Thinking back on the fake bankruptcy report that was issued to you, I realized that he must have authorized it and assigned you a fraudulent mission. This suggests to me that he learned of our plans from someone else in the cabinet. He may have even been the leader of the faction and my guess is that it was funded for whatever reason by the Gyges Circle.”
“Bastard,” muttered Rick.
Amon thought for a moment and said, “But if Sekido is the leader of the Moderate Choice faction that opposed you and your policies, and those policies are beneficial to Fertilex, why would Anisha work with him?”
“That is the center of the whole tangled knot and I never have managed to unravel it. Good chance of that here, in this information wasteland …” Barrow winced and dropped his gaze to the tatamifoam.
The men went silent, thinking over this convoluted chain of events, the white glare of a sunlight pin that caught the corner of Amon’s right eye seeming to sear his mind blank.
“So, to conclude my story,” said Barrow after a time, raising his head to catch their gazes, “once I had this inkling of what was happening, I fired all my guards and household servants, not knowing which one had placed the parasite. I then hired an entirely new crew, doubling the number that was around me at all times just in case. When twenty-four hours passed without me meeting any of their demands and nothing happened, I started to wonder if I was being paranoid and let down my defenses for just one hour to have my nightly
bath. Then you appeared in my spa …”
Barrow’s expression remained docile and attentive, but a tightness appeared in his throat, as though his breathing had stopped, and his husky-pale blue eyes widened ever so slightly as a sort of angry aura seemed to buzz over his face, surely remembering what Amon had done to him. Amon felt the dull, heavy coal of guilt in his chest smolder anew with each breath. Although he couldn’t help feeling a touch of betrayal and wariness towards Barrow when he thought of him pulling the crossbow, Amon recognized even more clearly after everything Barrow had said that the man’s deceit had been justified. Here was one of Amon’s many victims, banished mercilessly from the Free World, though he hadn’t even been bankrupt and probably deserved it the least of anyone. He wanted to apologize, but felt odd doing so in front of his partners, especially Ty.
“The truth is, I hadn’t fired all my staff,” continued Barrow. “I kept my museum curator, as he had been with me for decades and had my complete trust. I felt camaraderie with him as a fellow nostie who seemed to derive true joy from tending the various collections in my Tsukuda getaway. He had even helped me design the building itself. But I’m certain now that he was the one who betrayed me. To forge a real-time AT readout of the kind they used to trick you”—Barrow’s gaze honed in exclusively on Amon—“into assassinating me would have required surveillance of what I was doing at that moment and the only person with access to the sensors in my residence was him. The parasite in my pajamas was no doubt his doing as well. My guess is that they must have offered him the anadeto I refused along with the anadeto I left behind for GATA to auction off with the rest of my assets.”
The Naked World Page 32