Null States

by Malka Older

  “And Halliday gets free rein as the head of state she already is in name.”

  Very neat indeed. “What else?”

  Nougaz’s eyebrows go up but her smile widens: she’s pleased that Mishima saw something was missing. “We’ve thrown in the five-year term for Supermajority.”

  “Policy1st isn’t going to like that. Especially if they find out how it happened.” Mishima is always careful not to sound like she’s taking Policy1st’s side, seeing as Ken used to work there, but Nougaz is even more exposed on that count.

  Nougaz shrugs. “Ten years is too long between elections; people lose interest, forget what they’re voting for, ignore politics.” Ignore us, Mishima thinks. “It was inevitable. This way, we get something in exchange for what we were going to do eventually anyway. And while, yes, it would be nice to wait a bit longer, we’re stretched too thin with the K-stan war. The secession threat is starting to leak, and we can’t afford to be dealing with two global crises now.”

  “All that makes sense,” Mishima says, because it does, whether or not she personally agrees with it. “I do have to bring up something that I’ve been working on.”

  “You’ve been working on something quietly?” Nougaz asks, but without anger; she likes initiative.

  “I’ve been working on finding the bomber, per my mandate,” Mishima answers. “What I’ve been quiet about is the direction the investigation is pointing, because it’s unsubstantiated.” So far. “But I am now almost sure that it will lead to Head of State Halliday.”

  Nougaz’s eyebrows go up. “She bombed her own people? Her own citizens, her own government staff?” They come down again. “Is this the evidence speaking or that narrative disorder of yours?”

  Mishima has heard less-direct versions of this question too many times to bristle at it. At least Nougaz says what she’s thinking. Still, she lets some of the weariness into her voice as she explains. “It’s not either evidence or narrative disorder. The narrative disorder works from the evidence. As I said, I’m not yet willing to stake my reputation on Halliday as the culprit. But the data is highly suggestive.” Nougaz turns to the window to consider, and Mishima goes on. “The very fact that Halliday would take that deal indicates a level of pathology—”

  “It indicates a desire for power,” Nougaz says. “A pathology all leaders share. Or almost all. And we’re giving her what she wants.”

  “You think she won’t find something new to want?”

  “I think that knowing she’s behind the bombing gives us the means to take away everything she has if we want to.”

  Mishima starts to pace. “So, you think you can control her. I’m saying I don’t think she’s entirely rational. She’s not someone I would want as head of state.”

  “We didn’t put her there,” Nougaz points out. “She was elected through the representative mechanism of her government.”

  “But with this deal you’re making her more powerful. And it means you’re going to have to keep dealing with her.”

  “This is what we do. We deal with the dangerous, sociopathic, power-hungry individuals the people elect.”

  Mishima paces in silence for a few laps, strategizing.

  “Did you ever figure out how Heritage communicated internally about the secession?”

  Nougaz blinks, a substantial victory, and then flutters her hand dismissively. “The cryptographers and techies were working on it. I’m not sure what the status is, but I can check if you like.”

  “They’re looking in the wrong place,” Mishima says, battening down her uncertainty for battle. “It’s not a code; it’s some other method, an entirely different system. My most recent informant called it the Inner Channel, and there was mention in one of my recordings of a ‘comms pipeline.’” Nougaz’s interest sharpens visibly. “One which might include some clandestine intel.”

  “And Halliday was part of this discussion?”

  “She shut it down,” Mishima replies, gauging the older woman’s reaction. “She wanted no talk about the comms and especially not of the intel, even in a high-level gathering that included open consideration of extraditing Pressman.”

  “I see,” Nougaz says, and turns back to the window. Mishima looks for a reflection to get even a sense of what Nougaz’s face is showing, but sees only slate rows of Parisian roofs. She decides to press her advantage.

  “I’d like to stay in Geneva a little longer.”

  There is a pause, but Mishima is not sure whether it is a reaction to her statement or because Nougaz is still contemplating illicit intel streams. “I’m not sure what your usefulness is at this point…”

  “At least until the deal is actually complete,” Mishima says, knowing this will be a good pressure point. No one at Information wants to be left without an intelligence asset in place if something goes wrong. “Make sure she’s managing the retreat from secession and getting the rest of the government on board with it. Dig further into this comms issue. And if I can prove her responsibility for the bombing, you’ll have that in your arsenal.”

  Nougaz turns back to the room, lips pursed. “Isn’t your contact already shaky? It seems to me you could follow the progress on the deal from here, or Saigon if you prefer.”

  It’s a low blow, because Mishima would very much prefer Saigon. “Give me a few more days to see if I can find something concrete on Halliday”—because, Mishima is realizing, she’s not just consulting on this one; she wants to nail that creep—“and I can monitor implementation of the deal at the same time.”

  Nougaz holds out one more moment. “Fine. But don’t push too hard on your contact. In fact, leave the comms issue for the techies to deal with. Just get what you can on Halliday. You’re right. We may need it.”

  * * *

  “What about,” Roz says half an hour later, as if the conversation had never lapsed, “accidents?”

  “You mean to assign blame?” Maria asks, still focused on her work.

  “No, like situations where something happened, and it doesn’t really matter, but you’re not sure what you remember.” Maria looks up from her eye-level projections, confused. “Like this: I was walking with an elderly acquaintance, in Durban, and he stumbled and fell. He was fine but a little banged up, and the more I thought about it, the less I could remember exactly what happened. Did I look away? Should I have been holding his arm? Was it my fault?”

  “And you looked up the feed.”

  “All six of them, actually. It wasn’t a big deal but … I just remember feeling sorry for people without Information.”

  “Only the ones with a conscience,” Maria puts in drily. “But to your point.” She arranges her thoughts. “We live the way we do because we believe in privacy, yes? But working outside, as I do, it leads one to develop a philosophy.” Roz thinks how odd it is to refer to the entirety of the Informational world as “outside.” “Can we state as a given that there is no single objective truth?” Maria asks. Roz nods easily: this is clear. “The problem with feeds, beyond all the obvious problems, I mean, is that they give us the illusion of a perfect truth, incontrovertible evidence, a flat, singular version of history. They are too easy to rely on, to believe in.” She lightens her words with a smile and a half-shrug. “I practice sustaining my disbelief in objective, documentable truth.”

  Roz can think of many examples to counteract this—they are hoping, for one, to find incontrovertible evidence of murder, and maybe corruption, and she is not going to buy in to a universe where the bad guys both did and did not kill the governor—but she is intrigued by the larger point and disinclined to nitpick. Besides, it brings them to another question that Roz has been wanting to ask.

  “What about when there is an injustice by someone in a position of authority?” Roz asks.

  “That,” Maria answers, “is an argument. But we have tried to arrange our system to give the benefit of the doubt to those who have less power. Besides, you and I know well enough that recording everything is not exactly a guar
antee against abuses by people in authority.”

  True enough.

  “And you like living there?” Roz still finds it hard to imagine.

  “Yes. I like having my privacy. Besides, my family is there.”

  “You have family?”

  “Yes, my partner and three children.” Maria projects a quick succession of pictures. “One of the reasons I still vote for Privacy=Freedom is so that I can choose whom to show those pictures to.”

  Roz is still managing a slight but unmissable plunge in the gut. She finds herself estimating Maria’s age, subtracting the guessed age of her oldest child: checking for data about a cutoff date.

  “Tough to do this work with a family,” she says, and changes the subject. “Why do you work for Information, anyway? If you believe in privacy, I mean, and no objective truth.”

  Maria flashes her a wink and a grin. “Guilty pleasure.”

  * * *

  Kei stays out of Deepal’s way as much as possible, prowling the halls and working in the canteen or in the various smaller coffee break areas around the building. It is closer to Mishima’s preferred work style anyway and leaves her free to keep close tabs on the council and other upper leadership positions.

  She also cultivates Syl. Having confirmed most of their story, she wants as much access to the Halliday-tracker as possible, and evaluates the best approach for getting it. Unfortunately, telling them the full truth is not an option. One would think it was obvious that Information would gather its intel in any way possible, including human sources, but for some reason, it’s harder to accept a spy than a clandestine recorder (there have been extensive studies on the question). As such, the existence, even more than the identity, of Information’s intelligence assets remains tightly embargoed.

  So, Kei gives Syl a fictional version of the truth, hurriedly backed up by a team in Doha (Mishima has decided to get a little distance from Paris in this operation): she comes from a far-flung Heritage centenal (in Honiara, the farthest one they could find), dispatched by her colleagues out of concern for Halliday’s decisions and to determine whether it would be wise to—Kei lowers her tone to a whisper—secede from the secession.

  Mishima therefore receives two warnings when the grindstones finally begin to turn. Syl reaches out to her early one morning, telling her that Halliday has taken her crow on an unscheduled trip, headed east. Kei leaves an anodyne, previously agreed-upon message in one of the popular open-access plazas for Lucien to find, and haunts the upper reaches of the building where the council members are usually found, and so she almost immediately gets wind of their sudden excitement, flutterings from office to office, repeated update checks as they crisscross the corridors. The excitement seems to have a positive spin, which is a smart move on Halliday’s part. Syl let her follow the progress of the state crow in real time, and Mishima estimates how she, were she in Halliday’s duplicitous position, would time it. Mere seconds before the time she had marked, the agitation among the council reaches the boiling point, and they start to bubble toward the elevator, hair variously combed over or patted smooth, jackets adjusted, shirt panels centered.

  Mishima, as usual, takes the stairs, wondering what pretense Halliday gave to get them out of the building. Unlike William Pressman, the council members are not (yet) wanted for arrest, and many of them regularly cross non-Heritage centenals every day, so they are not overly cautious. Once they are out of the building, it is only a few steps to the favored press conference location in front of the lake, with the jet d’eau picturesque in the background. They are still in Heritage territory, but the Heritage head of state has given permission, and Information security officers arrest them neatly: few struggles, no blood, and many loud, ineffectual protests. It will be on all the news compilers in seconds, and Mishima checks the crow: yes, it has landed in the Heritage centenal near Zurich, where William Pressman has been living for the past two years. She is not surprised that Halliday wanted to attend that arrest personally.

  CHAPTER 24

  With secession off the table, there’s no need for Kei’s report and no excuse for Mishima to stay in Geneva. She says a careful good-bye to Deepal, trying to thank him and convey that she understands his anger and is not offended by it without further upsetting him. She’s not sure she manages it. Before she leaves, and then at greater length on the flight home, Mishima debates whether to send Syl the audio she recorded from the café. There are easy ways to scrub the identifying data; that’s not what she’s worried about. It seems like such a gift: to know what Syl’s loved ones were laughing and arguing about in their last moments. But it might not work that way. It might exacerbate Syl’s already-pounding survivor’s guilt, obsess her further with the events of that night. Mishima lands in Saigon still unsure.

  * * *

  Ken is used to Mishima’s post-deployment routine by now and is happy enough to spend every non-working, non-sleeping hour immersed in content with her. When she first arrives, she’s too tired to even play through an interactive, so they watch old films and newer vids and get bánh mì and bánh xèo home-delivered. After six hours, she starts telling him bits and pieces about what happened; he listens carefully, knowing he’ll need to remember the cast of characters for when she gets into the longer, more painful stories. By day two, she restarts her speedblading routine, and by that night, when he gets home from work (takeout in hand), she’s ready for more active escapism. They spend the night playing through TwinSpin. Ken stumbles through work the next day, which fortunately is Friday, and that night, they take it easy again, curling up to rewatch the entire four-season run of Nick Knack. Saturday, they manage to get out for a walk before burrowing in again. Sunday is two weeks from when they met up in Geneva, and they sit together, Ken squirming and Mishima still, as Mishima runs her diagnostic.

  * * *

  The problem with the foreign consultants is that none of them have coincided with the tsubame during the period they’re looking at. Roz wonders if they’re going to have to reassess the mechanic’s story or go back to investigating locals. She’s considering calling each of the consultants personally, but there are a lot of them.

  She takes a quick break to check in on the K-stan situation. Since Charles left, Roz has been monitoring it more closely. She had gotten inured to the sporadic reports of violence; having switched her settings to prioritize longitudinal animations, she can see the front creeping closer to the micro-democratic centenals. The confrontations have become both more frequent and deadlier. As an exercise, she applies the same visualizations to the fighting around Kas, but the data is too sparse to discern a pattern.

  The Djabal centenal finance manager wrote back to her after a day’s delay with many apologies for the mistakes in accounting, claiming something better would be sent to her soon. Roz is still waiting. The desk officer was equally contrite and unhelpful, baffled as to how he could have missed it or what could have gone wrong.

  Here, at least, Roz has some idea where to look. She pulls the numbers for the Information assistance package on accession. It’s tricky, because those budgets are government-wide, but she can crunch the line-item numbers for required Information infrastructure with the agreements by centenal and then subtract the cost of the feeds that actually exist. It doesn’t come out to exactly the same number as the infrastructure costs minus the official budget, but it’s pretty close. Roz leans back, tapping her fingers. Now she knows why that meeting in Djabal went long and Al-Jabali was late for their visit. The meeting was about their visit, about how to hide or at least distract from all this expensive infrastructure funded with Information money. Roz shakes her head. A SVAT mission isn’t an audit; they probably wouldn’t even have noticed.

  What was funded here in Kas? she wonders. The evaporation plant is pre-Information era. Maybe they are planning to use the money on electricity?

  Why hasn’t Suleyman mentioned it in all their talk about Information and progress and trust?

  Disgusted, Roz gets up and be
gins to pace.

  She calls Maryam and sends her the data with the relevant numbers highlighted and crunched. Maryam stares at it for a while. “This wasn’t a mistake. They deliberately moved the budget. How did we not catch this?”

  “We weren’t paying attention?” Roz suggests with a shrug. She tells Maryam about the desk officer.

  “It’s very strange,” Maryam answers. “I’ll see if I can find out anything about headquarters coverage of that area.”

  “While you’re at it, see if you can find anything similar anywhere else. I’d start with ToujoursTchad.”

  Roz hangs up, and the numbers she had been working with reemerge on her workspace projection. It is satisfying to see them fit so neatly, but it tells her nothing about who killed Al-Jabali or why.

  * * *

  Mishima has been in Saigon long enough to begin to feel frustrated with her content binge, which means it’s time to get back to work. That’s when she gets a message (forwarded through Kei’s contacts) from Syl: Deepal has disappeared.

  “What do you mean, disappeared?” Mishima is stricken with guilt: if something has happened to Deepal, it is almost certainly her fault.

  “I don’t know. His officemate told me—”

  “Xandra?”

  “No, Loïc. He came into work as usual this morning and then … someone came to get him, around ten.”

  “Who?”

  “Loïc didn’t know. At first, he thought it was just someone calling him for an impromptu meeting. He said Deepal seemed surprised but not worried. But when Deepal didn’t come back, he started to think maybe the guy was security. And then they came back for his workspace.”

  Oh, that is not a good sign. “And nothing from Deepal since?”

  “Nothing. We’ve been calling, pinging. He’s not logged on anywhere.” Syl is gulping air, close to panic, and Mishima tries to make her tone comforting.

  “No need to keep calling; he’ll get in touch with you when he can.” And no need to compromise yourself any more than you already have.