by Eliot Peper
Zia had taken a statistics class at Berkeley. The professor was obsessed with puzzles, as if life was a vast crossword waiting to be decoded. Selai would have loved it. Every question on the final exam was a labyrinth unto itself, riddled with misdirection, red herrings, and dead ends. Zia grappled with the last question like a Sumo wrestler, but kept getting pushed out of the ring. Drained and frustrated, she had looked up at the winter light slanting down into the high-ceilinged hall. Staring at the revolving motes of dust, she’d glimpsed the answer. But just as she picked up her pen to jot it down, the professor called time. The bittersweet memory echoed in her heart—she had reached the solution, but too late.
The drones roared overhead again, a glistening mass of sleek airborne predators that were simultaneously omniscient and heedless with their sensor arrays and silicon minds. One of them peeled off from the flock and decelerated to circle the Interstice compound, a banner unfolding from its tail. Zia tasted the crisp air of a clear Swiss night, smelled the sweaty funk of sex, recognized the searing brand of self-recrimination. She knew who the author was before she could so much as read the text printed on the rippling fabric.
Meet me on the beach.
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30
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They met Tommy in a cabana.
Zia and Santiago waited in the shade, watching the Zodiac approach on a churning bow wave. Gulls bickered over a half-eaten crab carcass and heat radiated off the sun-drenched sand. Dembe had assembled as many security officers as she could spare to take up stations at various points along the beach, a show of strength that so paled in comparison to the sleek monster anchored offshore that Zia feared the exercise might prove counterproductive.
How strange it was to see an armed standoff on a remote island between a multinational telecommunications company and a corpomonarchy vying for control of a fulcrum that no one else was even aware existed. All the twentieth century statecraft case studies Zia had read in preparation for her ambassadorial appointment rang false. There were echoes of earlier times, the vicious forays of the British East India Company for example, but something was different here too: the suggestion of a new thread in the tapestry of history.
The driver gunned the engine at the last minute and the Zodiac ran up onto the beach, disgorging commandos who fingered assault rifles as they and Dembe’s team stared each other down through the requisite dark sunglasses. Zia remembered her desperate flight through Chhattisgarh, her escape from the villa she thought was a cell, the all-too-recent footrace with the FBI in Central Park. These were people for whom such extraordinary circumstances were ordinary. They specialized in violence, in emergency, in operating on the razor’s edge until its very keenness became banal. What constituted extremity for them? A lover’s quarrel? An afternoon curled up with a book? A life that acquired a regular, predictable rhythm?
Tommy leapt over the gray buoyancy tube of the Zodiac, landing in the sand with easy grace. He wore an ivory linen suit and leather boat shoes without socks. He grinned as he walked up the sand toward them, waving away the two commandos hurrying to escort him. Every movement was infused with tense energy, as if he couldn’t quite contain himself.
That was one of the qualities that had drawn Zia to him all those years ago. Even as a teenager, Tommy was always brimming with ideas, plans, opinions. He was constantly reaching beyond himself, attempting to lasso the ineffable. That striving was part of his charisma. It pulled people to him even as it warped them to serve his purposes. This situation was that self-consuming logic followed to its ultimate conclusion.
How to reconcile the brutal image of Galang’s corpse on the sticky floor of a New Malé brothel with the winsome man whose eyes twinkled as he made his way across the beach? Zia was surprised to discover that seeing Tommy here in front of her, she felt not hatred but an abiding sadness—regret that he had debased himself to such a profound extent that he was willing to kill.
“Zia!” he said brightly, as if they had just run into each other at a cocktail bar. “I’d say you look smashing, but”—he winced in false sympathy at her cuts and bruises—“to be honest, it’s more like smashed.”
“You look like the weird uncle who supplies cocaine to bored kids stuck in Cape Cod for the summer.”
“Charming, as always.” He turned to her father. “And Santiago, I’ve followed your work for many years. It’s an honor to meet the genius behind Interstice.”
For half a second, Zia thought her father might lash out and crush Tommy’s windpipe, setting off a firefight on the open beach. But instead, Santiago simply ignored Tommy’s extended hand and said, “And I hear you’re a good-for-nothing princeling.”
“I’ve taken quite a bit of initiative, believe it or not.” Tommy winked. “There’s nothing quite like the feeling of having a lot to lose and putting it all on the line. I mean, when you started out, you had nothing to lose, so I don’t expect you to understand. You rags-to-riches folk are always so… blue collar, if you know what I mean. I don’t blame you. You just don’t understand that power is about making other people do the work, rather than doing all the work yourself. But don’t think that I don’t respect it, it’s people like you who make shiny new things for people like me to use. I am in your debt for being in my debt.”
“I don’t owe you a thing, comemierda,” snapped Santiago.
“It’s okay,” said Tommy, in a patronizing tone. “I know how stressful succession can be.”
Santiago nearly exploded but Zia gave him a nudge. There was nothing to be gained by letting Tommy provoke him. They sat on the edges of twin chaise lounges, Tommy on one, Zia and her father on the other. The shade was a relief, but they were uncomfortably close, almost knee-to-knee. What had Tommy said to her in Zürich? This conversation isn’t for me to vet you. It’s the reverse. If only Zia had taken that to heart, unearthed the subtext she had coached Himmat to notice. There were worry lines on Tommy’s face that hadn’t been there in boarding school, and there was something sour about his smile that implied a sneer. If once he had lived with a light, sardonic touch, now maintaining that same impression seemed to cost him dearly, as if he were a paper airplane that required a rocket booster to stay airborne.
An awkward silence followed that none of them seemed able to break. Waves lapped at the shore. Fingers rested lightly on triggers. Time swelled and distended, sticky and elastic like rising dough. Finally, Zia couldn’t take it any longer.
“How’d you find out about the geoengineering program?” she asked quietly.
Santiago tensed but Tommy looked nonplussed, as if she had just played an ace he’d been sure was up his sleeve. He recovered his composure and said, “Leadership isn’t about money or intelligence or charisma, it’s about people. Simple as that. Whenever things go right, it’s because of the people behind them. And whenever things go wrong, it’s for the same reason. Now, Santiago,”—his eyes flickered to her father—“I am your biggest fan, I assure you. But let’s be honest, you’re a total control freak. You make all these amazing things and drive people crazy doing it. You can’t seem to learn that the best way to win other people’s trust is to extend your own trust to them.”
“I didn’t ask for a therapy session,” said Zia.
Tommy raised a finger. “Therapy,” he said, “is something both of you could use a lot more of.”
“Ben Munroe,” said Zia.
“Ding, ding, ding!” said Tommy, delightedly. “You’re as sharp as ever.”
“That ungrateful motherfucker,” growled Santiago.
“See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” said Tommy. “Your chief scientist was so sick of needing to ask you for permission to do any damn thing that it was all too easy to persuade him that a change was in order, that maybe he should be leading Project Svalinn himself. Turns out that much of the rest of your senior team and board of directors feel similarly. They’re all powerful people who don’t like to be put in their place, even when they’re wrong. And while Ben kno
ws what you’ve been doing out here, nobody else does and they’ve become pretty darn frustrated with a CEO who’s spending an inordinate amount of time on a remote airbase instead of at Interstice HQ. Not a good look.”
“It’s my goddamn company!” said Santiago.
“Except it’s not,” said Tommy. “Not really anyway, certainly not anymore. Interstice is just a group of people working toward a common goal. So I’ve just gone ahead and adjusted the target a little. We’ve bought up a decent portion of your stock and with your reputation on the rocks and the market cap in free fall, it’s time to swoop in for an outright acquisition.”
Zia met his eye. “You murdered Galang and framed us,” she said slowly, as if trying out the idea for the first time. It was a strange thing to say, more seal than statement. “The grant. The kidnapping. You wanted leverage. Hijack the program that had hijacked the climate, right?” Horror curdled at the center of Escher-esque spirals of logic. Zia didn’t want to believe it, but she couldn’t not believe it. “And when you failed, you killed Galang and drowned us in deep fakes all to keep Project Svalinn from going public.”
“I play to win,” said Tommy with forced nonchalance. “But offing Galang was just a lucky bonus. My contractors wouldn’t have bungled the kidnapping, except that you rushed us with your sudden binge of climate model archive searches.” Selai’s naked skin against her own under alpine stars. It starts, as all truly great stories do, on a dark and stormy night—better yet, it’s about why we can’t seem to make sense of how nights get all dark and stormy in the first place. Of course. Tommy had been tracking Zia’s Interstice accounts, surveilling the research Selai had inspired and setting off the red flags Santiago had noticed. “Getting your pretty face back would be quite a convincing reason for Santiago to sell his precious company, Project Svalinn included.” He shook a finger at her and Zia’s hands flexed as she remembered clutching the frozen pizza in that dark alley below laundry fluttering in the breeze. “But when you slipped away, I couldn’t very well risk y’all deciding to tell the world about the program. So”—he shrugged—“here we are. Plan Bs usually aren’t this magnificent, if I may say so myself.”
“My lawyers are going to eat you alive,” snarled Santiago. “They’ll tear apart your case piece by piece. I’ll expose every backstabbing asshole on the board for the scum that they are. You think they don’t have skeletons in their closets that I know about? I’ll hire every private investigator on earth to stalk you until the day you die. And once I kick your scrawny ass, I’ll use every Interstice asset at my disposal to break up your incestuous corpokingdom and leave you to bleed out on the desert.”
“Oh, do tell,” said Tommy. “I am curious, though. How are you going to pay your attorneys with all your assets frozen? How will you be able to leverage Interstice once the board suspends you? And with this many warrants out for your arrest, do you plan on mounting your defense from prison or as a fugitive?”
It was a neat trap, she’d give him that. Tommy always had a way of working people around to his side. He’d lob questions and drop comments throughout a conversation and his interlocutor wouldn’t realize what was happening until he leapt in at the very end to make a point that harvested all the seeds he’d planted. One fell swoop was the ideal he aspired to. This chaos was that aspiration, violently realized. Zia felt like she was in one of those dissociative dreams where you looked over your own shoulder.
Santiago laughed. “You think the fairytale you’re spinning will stand up? It’s easy to corral people who hold a grudge. But what happens when digital forensics reveals that those videos, photos, messages, all your precious ‘evidence,’ are nothing but forgery? Hard to prosecute on nothing but hot air, hotshot.”
When Interstice was in the midst of displacing the traditional cable companies, Santiago had regaled Zia and Miranda with stories of his ongoing exploits. Zia hadn’t been able to understand any of the jargon, but she understood that her father was a fierce commander who always managed to outmaneuver his enemies with consummate cleverness. That same angry confidence accented his words like a highlighter, but rather than presaging inevitable victory, Zia feared it was brittle armor hastily donned at the onset of a surprise attack.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Tommy. “This is one of those times when I wish we were recording this little tête-à-tête. I mean, I don’t actually wish that, but there are some real gems here. It’s adorable how much you believe in the ability to win people over with facts. Very endearing. You think this will all disappear when some academic expert pronounces those videos doctored? As if the world cares about a he-said-she-said attribution dispute between two technical wizards nobody can understand anyway. You don’t get it: you’ve already lost. Even if I were to wave my hand and make it all go away, you’re stained by association. You might convince people that something fishy is going on, but they’ll never stop suspecting you’re connected to it in one way or another.”
“You think I care what other people think?” asked Santiago.
“That’s a lovely contrarian sentiment, really it is,” said Tommy, and Zia wanted to shout in his face that none of this was necessary, that if he had cared a little less about what other people thought, this whole disaster could have been avoided. “But there’s one thing you need that you don’t have: time.”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” demanded Santiago.
Tommy’s smile had a touch of melancholy that terrified Zia more than any of his vainglory had. “The Indonesians have promised a signed extradition order by tomorrow morning. The minute we have that in hand, my marines will move in and arrest you, all by the book of course. The corpomonarchy is, after all, one of the victims of your illicit data dealing. Plus, we have treaties in place with the Maldives, which is where your hired killer did his dirty work. It’s a short flight to Riyadh and I promise you, the SaudExxon criminal justice system isn’t nearly as slow or bureaucratic as its Western counterparts. We won’t burden you with endless appeals or astronomical attorney fees or anything along those lines. The trial will be quick and decisive. Which brings me to the real reason I’m here: to discuss the terms of your sentencing.”
“That’s a clear conflict of interest,” said Santiago. “Nobody will stand for it.”
“I’d say that the interests of the judicial and executive systems are, in fact, very aligned in this case,” said Tommy. “Which will streamline the process further. And the rest of the world will thank us for cleaning up the mess.”
It was at this point that Zia belatedly realized that Tommy was right. She was so accustomed to her father’s endless contingencies and indefatigable drive that she’d mistaken his weak ripostes as strategic ploys intended to draw Tommy out, like a boxer pretending to favor a leg only to accelerate off it at the last minute with an uppercut for the knockout. But his defensiveness was all too real. Santiago had become so obsessed with this geoengineering project that he’d inadvertently lost control of Interstice. He thought he’d been keeping all the balls in the air when, in fact, another juggler had been snatching them away. Now that it was becoming apparent, he was reacting as he always had, with righteous anger, but there was no weight behind it, no map to which the future must conform, only an old man who didn’t want to admit how tired he was.
Sun sparkled off the surf and the briny air tickled Zia’s nose. She reached down and scooped up a handful of sand, letting it fall through her fingers, marveling at the simple fact that humans had harnessed the silicon embedded in these grains to invest objects with cognition. Humans had drilled thousands of feet into the earth to harvest corpses entombed in vast reservoirs, fueling civilization with the liquefied remains of prehistoric life. Humans had devised these miracles and more, and yet were still consumed by divisiveness, still betrayed, hurt, and killed each other over petty collective fictions of status, wealth, and power. It was as if God were indeed real, but spent all His time drinking cheap gin and playing penny slots.
“This is quite a co
up for you,” said Zia. “Publicly, you take SaudExxon in a bold new direction by taking over Interstice. Privately, you keep pumping aerosols into the stratosphere to sabotage any threats to your hydrocarbon empire. This could set you on a trajectory for the throne.”
“Co-option is the highest form of flattery,” said Tommy, and she believed him, knew that underneath his piracy was a twisted kind of awe, the jealous obsession of a fan stalking their favored creator. Tommy acted as if he looked down on Santiago precisely because he looked up to him.
“Do that,” said Santiago, color draining from his face, “and the risks of a termination shock skyrocket. We don’t understand the earth system well enough to set the stakes that high. This program buys time to transition away from fossil fuels. Once we take carbon out of the energy equation, we ramp down aerosol injection. It’s a stopgap measure.”
“No need to complicate things,” said Tommy. “It lowers global temperature, which means we can burn all the oil we want and keep global warming in check.”
Zia had been aghast when her father admitted the program might have contributed to India’s failed monsoon. Volcanic eruptions cooled the planet and decimated human settlements. Tampering with the global climate created regional effects that were hard to predict or even explain, and that was when the people doing it pretended to care. SaudExxon wouldn’t take the fates of subsistence farmers or endangered species into account. They would optimize Project Svalinn to maximize the value of their oil and gas reserves, which meant throttling it up to accommodate emissions growth and keeping it secret to disarm scientific adversaries.
What had she told Galang? There’s no such thing as a natural disaster. There are only human disasters revealed by nature. Vindication had never been so abhorrent.
“You’re dumping all the risk on future generations,” said Santiago, voice hollow. “You could set off an ice age.”