Null States

by Malka Older

  Mishima makes a sympathetic face. “Inauguration of some kind?” She scans newsfeeds as she says it to figure out what that might be.

  “Funeral.”

  “What? Who?” Mishima has been consciously trying to reduce her addiction to news, and now all her disaster nerves spring alert, reaching out to find what went wrong and why she missed it and how she can fix it.

  “No, no one you know,” Roz says, and then hopes that’s true. She can’t remember if Mishima spent time in Darfur or Chad; she did work for Malakal, after all. “The head of state for the DarFur government was assassinated in front of our eyes.”

  “I missed that,” Mishima says, still scanning.

  “I’m sure it didn’t make many global compilers. There’s a lot going on in the world.”

  “There is,” Mishima agrees, sounding distracted. She’s wearing a sweaty tank top, and her auburn hair is pulled back into a messy bun: just back from exercising.

  “How’s the freelance life?” Roz asks, trying to bring her back.

  “Oh, great, you know, busy, but I suppose I can always say no, so there’s that. I keep telling you you should join me on this.” She’s still thinking about something else.

  Roz casts around for another topic. She can see Mishima’s apartment in the background as she wanders, and it doesn’t look like anyone is there. She doesn’t want to ask where Ken is; she can find out on Information without the potential awkwardness. She’s been half-expecting that relationship to end ever since it began, watching as she would an inexpert tightrope walker, and she doesn’t particularly want to see the crash. “By the way,” she says instead, “I think the field lead here either has an undiagnosed narrative disorder or is trying to fake one.”

  “Oh?” Mishima’s tone is more guarded than interested, and Roz wonders what she did wrong: the suggestion that someone might fake the disorder? Or would Mishima prefer Roz pretended she didn’t know about her condition? Either way, she’s in it now, so she goes on, keeping her tone light as she describes the scene with Amran the day before.

  “Tricky,” Mishima says, when Roz has laid it out. “I’m guessing you don’t have too many mental health professionals out there, either.”

  Roz runs a quick check through Information. “None for five hundred kilometers in any direction.”

  Mishima ponders. “Let me see if I can find any resources that might help.” She rouses herself. “Are you okay, though? You said this assassination happened right in front of you.”

  “It’s not like I haven’t seen worse.”

  “It’s not like it doesn’t hurt anyway.”

  “I hadn’t met the guy, which helps.” Roz shrugs. “We’re okay. This is looking like an interesting one, though.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well … there are obvious suspects for the assassination but—almost too obvious, you know? There’s no trigger for why they would act now, and no one has claimed responsibility. So, there might be something else going on. Meanwhile, the fallout is going to be … complex.”

  Mishima chuckles. “So, you’re still liking the SVAT work?”

  Roz thinks to make sure she is. “What I really like,” she says finally, “is the combination. A week or two out in the field, uncomfortable and slightly dangerous, dealing with real people; then back to a few months of heavy, brain-bending data analytics. Some thinking, some fear. It’s a good balance.”

  “It sounds like it,” Mishima says, and her tone is more wistful than Roz expected.

  “What, you don’t get enough fear in consulting?”

  Mishima snorts. “Not enough thinking.” Then she shifts topic. “Oh, Malakal is there,” Mishima says, pulling intel from who knows what compiler or hack. “Say hi to him for me, please!”

  “I will, but you should call him yourself,” Roz tells her. “He’s worried about you.”

  “Worried about me?” Mishima almost laughs. She has finally settled, and is sprawling on a chaise lounge on her balcony, the spotless sky behind her. “Why?”

  “Because you left.”

  * * *

  As a teenager and into early adulthood, Minzhe earned a substantial amount of side money as a gold farmer, and he is still up-to-date with the most recent and revelatory interactive series. When he was a small boy in Darfur, however, the connectivity wasn’t good enough for interactive vid or even graphics, and his first gaming experiences were on old-fashioned text-only adventure games. His interior monologue still reverts to that mode whenever he’s somewhere new:

  You are standing in a small clearing in the city. Desperate grass clings to the sand in patches under the solitary acacia tree. To your right is the edge of the market, starting with a row of tailor stalls. In front of you, the ground slopes up to a rectangular one-story building of pockmarked concrete. Along the overhang that projects out above the doors, “DarFur Militia: Kas Station” is written in Arabic, English, and Chinese characters. The building is painted dull turquoise up to shoulder height, desert yellow above that. From here you can make out five doors facing the front, and on the right, a small separate wing juts toward you. In the one small window on that wing you can see bars. A number of men are sitting in front of the building. It looks like they are playing cards.

  A single camel is grazing below the tree, a rope stretching from its long neck to the tree trunk.

  Definitely the camel. It’s always that one detail that stands out that you need to do something with. He would type in every variation of untie camel he could think of (free camel; release camel; help camel) until it worked, and then ride it off into the market, maybe after winning a few rounds of cards to fill up his wallet. Minzhe grins, and walks up the slope toward the station.

  * * *

  Ken isn’t in Saigon, because he is speaking in one of the smoke-stained, aged rooms of the former Fábrica de Tabaco, current University, of Sevilla. He’s supposed to be trying life in the slow lane as a local government official, making a difference at the micro-level, but it’s a lot more fun to jet around the world as a (reasonably) well-paid speaker when he can. In the last election cycle, Policy1st became the first government to topple a sitting Supermajority, and people who worked on the campaign became instant, sought-after experts. Most of them are unavailable, since they are currently working for Policy1st and are discouraged from sharing too many secrets, but Ken’s former boss resigned just after the election and has become an almost inescapable pundit and commentator. When he’s overbooked, he’s started passing some of the (lower-profile) gigs Ken’s way.

  “That was a fascinating presentation! Tell me more about what you’re doing now.”

  Right now? Hoping she doesn’t notice he’s checking his fantasy rugby stats at eyeball level. “I’m director of citizen engagement at Free2B.” That’s a slight exaggeration. Ken is only the director for citizen engagement of a single centenal, not the whole government, but since Free2B only has twelve centenals worldwide, he doesn’t feel like it’s such a big difference. “I do a lot of fun techie stuff, trying to figure out how to get people to participate more in both policy formation and implementation.” It is fun. Last week, Ken rolled out “Policy Pub Trivia,” which had a great response and allowed him to spend every night at a different bar. A few months ago, he developed a new algorithm for finding consensus that was written into the latest polling law. It is totally fun. It’s just not as satisfying as saving the world.

  He figures that calling in sick every so often so he can jet around the world and pretend to be an expert at campaign espionage is a small price for him or his employer to pay to feed his globetrotting addiction. Besides, he is building his network! Making new contacts! Learning about innovations in other centenals!

  It’s obvious to him that the woman he’s talking to would like to be one of his new contacts. She is leaning so far on her elbow that her professionally shirred hair almost touches his shoulder, gazing as if she might fall through the floor if he broke eye contact. Ken can see that she�
�s pretty—well, no, strike that. Her projected makeup shimmers every few seconds like headlights are rolling over her face, and he can’t actually see through it to know whether or not she’s pretty. But he can tell that a lot of people would think she’s attractive, especially if she were telling them how amazing their work is. She’s wearing next to nothing, which makes sense because it’s forty degrees at eleven P.M., and also because she has a fairly good body. Ken is sure that sex with her would be fun, but he can’t get remotely excited about the prospect. Either one of Mishima’s eyebrows is more compelling than this woman’s whole body.

  Fortunately, there’s a whole group of people from the lecture who convened for after-conference drinks at this bar in a cavernous old charcoal warehouse, now filled with long tables and wooden benches, talk, music, and the smell of wine and bodies. “Do you think Policy1st will be able to win again? Especially if the election is in only three years?” The woman who asks is sitting on Ken’s other side and doesn’t seem to be angling to sleep with him, so even though he hates the question, he turns to her eagerly.

  “First of all, no one knows yet whether the term will be shortened—”

  “Of course it will be,” scoffs the scruffy-bearded man sitting across from them, who introduced himself as a freelance intel conglomerator. “Policy1st is not going to make it through ten years.”

  Whatever, guy who spends all his time trawling Information so he can sell repackaged facts. “Policy1st is doing great things, including not digging illegal tunnels into the planet. And—”

  “Look, I live in a Policy1st centenal, and I love them, I really do.” Although Ken notes he doesn’t say he voted for them. Moved in once they became the Supermajority, hmm? “The evidence-based policy focus, it’s refreshing, and sometimes even leads to positive outcomes. But as the Supermajority, they’re out of their depth. After all, those illegal tunnels into the planet are getting built anyway, aren’t they? Policy1st just won’t get the benefit of them.”

  “It’s not like they can control what all the other governments do.” Ken twitches his fingers to pull up the original charter giving the Supermajority mandate and limitations, then stops himself. Using data-based projections is a sure sign the argument’s getting away from him. “The Supermajority doesn’t have as much power as people think.” He forces himself to take a sip of his sangria and smile.

  Scruffy-beard waves his hands, flapping the loose edges of his sideless drape top. “Heritage managed all right. But for the term limits, it doesn’t matter anyway! Information lives off elections, and they’re the ones making the decision. They need to hold elections more often to maintain their control, keep their status as kingmakers.”

  “I don’t know,” says the woman who’s not leaning her leg against Ken’s. She’s wearing a sleeveless, mid-thigh-length jumpsuit that Ken has been eyeing enviously because it’s a bit bulky and therefore almost certainly climate-controlled. “With the K-stan war and Russia acting up, some stability might be good for a while.”

  “Stability is overrated. Elections are so much more exciting, right?” The flirtatious woman’s makeup sparkles as she leans toward Ken, aiming for conspiratorial.

  He shifts away from her as his mouth obediently spouts forth something about how governing is more important than elections. Maybe it’s her aggressive complicity, but suddenly, he can’t ignore the fact that if he really felt that way, he would be in Saigon, governing.

  * * *

  It takes Charles some time to find the garage, partly because it’s not labeled as a garage on the map but as GENERAL HARDWARE AND REPAIR (he has to admit, when he finally gets there, that it’s a more accurate description) but also because the map is out of date. It’s only out of date by eleven days, but apparently the stalls in the market have shifted since then, and so when Charles was looking for a leather shop to make the right turn, he walked right past the tinware stand that had taken its place. It takes him longer than it should to figure it out because it is so inconceivable that a map could be wrong, and he huffs into the garage hot, irritated, and in the middle of composing a sharp message to Amran.

  The shop is large enough for a vehicle to drive into, with buckets of wooden-handled shovels and rakes positioned around the door, the inside walls decorated with a pleasing metallic jumble of smaller sale items. A couple of skinny young men are lounging on a string bed in the rear of the space, and Charles asks one of them about the boss while shelving his message to Amran: she’s stressed enough as it is. The lad takes him through the back, where the shop opens into a large courtyard. There, a prehistoric, or at least pre-Information, truck chassis is decomposing next to a more recent minibus tilted onto one axle.

  The mechanic who stands up from his work does not tower over Charles, even though his public Information and the fine scar lines across his forehead announce he is a Dinka, from Abyei. “Hello, my brother,” Charles greets him, giving the man time to read his own affiliation and background. “Could we speak for a few minutes?”

  The mechanic, Paul, willingly leads him to a shaded corner. “I’ve been expecting you ever since that explosion,” he says, as he wipes his hands. “It is true it was sabotage?”

  “It was,” Charles answers. “We have proof.”

  Paul nods, looks away. “I am so glad it wasn’t me. That was the first tsubame I ever worked on, I was sure I did everything right, but still…” He looks back at Charles. “… I was worried somehow.”

  “Natural enough,” Charles agrees. “But we are sure it was sabotage. Someone did this deliberately. What we do not know is who, or where, or when.” He sees the mechanic understand: he was not at fault by negligence or error, but he may still be under suspicion of deliberate assassination.

  “I’ll tell you whatever I can,” Paul says, then takes a deep breath and starts without waiting for any questions. “As I said, it was the first tsubame I ever worked on, so I was pretty happy when it was brought in.”

  “Who brought it?” Charles interrupts.

  “In fact, I went to the mooring station by the governor’s office to get it. The governor’s secretary, Aisha, called me, told me there was a problem with the energy management system and asked me to look because the governor had some long trips coming up. I went there and they gave me a temporary access code to fly it back here.”

  “You take it for a spin?” Charles suggests.

  Paul shakes his head. “Only after I finished working on it, when I wanted to test it. Flying back that first time, I was nervous. I had the auto-assist playing the whole time.”

  “Okay, and then?”

  Paul shrugs. “I checked the whole thing, using the auto-assist—you can ask these boys here if you like,” he said, waving toward the youths in the shop. They have stretched out their rugs and Charles can see their silhouettes rising and bending in the afternoon prayer. “They were paying attention. They’d never seen a tsubame before. I did a full and complete inspection, which was more than was asked, because I thought it was my best opportunity to learn about these things.”

  “Not just the auto-diagnostic?”

  “No, I told you, I wanted to learn. I checked everything by hand. With the auto-assist, but visually, in real life.”

  “Did you find anything unusual at all?”

  “No. Not a thing was out of place. The normal signs of use were there but very minor. I changed the air pressurizer filters, even though they weren’t clouded, but it was the only thing I could figure that would help reduce energy use. At the end of the day, I never did figure out why the energy management was giving that message. Maybe the governor accidentally programmed it wrong or something; it seemed to be working fine when I saw it.”

  Charles doesn’t want to do anything as obvious as finger-twitching a note, so he gives the little crook of the head that he has set to mark the timestamp in his recording. Then he pulls up the schematics he’s been given and focuses in on the fatal valve. “Was this in place?”

  Paul studies it. �
��Yes. That was there. There would have been a warning if it wasn’t.”

  Not if the diagnostic was hacked, Charles thinks. “Did you verify it visually?”

  “Yes. That section was open anyway because of the filters, so it wasn’t difficult to look at. I checked every part there visually.”

  “How long was the vehicle here?” Charles asks, closing the projection.

  “Two days. It took too long to get it done in one.”

  “And was it open as you mentioned overnight?”

  “Oh, no,” Paul says. “Of course not. I couldn’t have sand or dust getting into the mechanism. No, I closed it up and covered it. I was still nervous, though. It’s silly, because who would steal the governor’s property? You can’t hide a tsubame anywhere. But I came in early the next morning, couldn’t help feeling my heart pounding as I walked in, but of course it was still there.”

  “Nothing out of place?” Charles asks. He’s noticed how vulnerable this place is: the walls around the inner courtyard come up to his shoulder, and there’s no door closing it off from the shop either.

  “No, nothing,” Paul says. “I finished the check, took it for a little ride”—he chuckles at the memory—“and flew it back to the governor’s office. Ran the auto-diagnostics three times on the way, too. Nothing.”

  CHAPTER 8

  They arrive in Kas after dark. There are few lights in the town, and Malakal uses Information navigation to steer them to the compound, where he again moors directly over the roof of one of the offices instead of at the public mooring space near the centenal hall. They find Amran and Maria in the main office, working on a projected database. Around the table are three of Amran’s stringers, identified in the public Information projected beside their heads: Mohamed Nour, twenty-three, a skinny man with thick eyebrows and reddish skin; Yagoub Mohamed, age not listed but probably late twenties, handsome and knows it; and Khadija Jibrail, a young matron of twenty-six with three children (names and ages listed, with tiny photos) and a winning smile.