Null States

by Malka Older

  “Was it poison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Traceable?”

  “Borderline. We probably would have noticed it wasn’t a natural death, but could she have known we have that technology? Unclear.” Was Halliday trying to kill someone and get away with it, or was she always planning to disappear?

  “Did you figure out whose glass it was?”

  “The poison was meant for Valérie,” Nejime says. “I do wonder what it was that made her, particularly, the target of Halliday’s fury.” Her face is unreadable. Mishima had always imagined that Nougaz and Nejime’s mild rivalry at work carried through to the rest of their lives, respectfully disagreeing from a distance, but maybe they are closer than she thought. “Unfortunately, and through no fault of yours,” Nejime goes on, “we don’t know where Halliday is.”

  “Dangerous,” Mishima agrees.

  “Heritage is floundering.”

  “Not my problem.” Mishima is very sure about that. If entitled former Supermajority governments elect punk-ass self-serving sociopaths as their leaders, picking up the pieces is not Mishima’s job.

  Nejime smiles indulgently. “I suppose not. We do have something else for you if you’re up for it.”

  Mishima wonders if that last clause is a reference to her current condition. She wouldn’t put it past them to have sniffed that out.

  “The war in central Asia is getting out of hand,” Nejime goes on, and Mishima focuses. Dealing with war, now that’s a job. “We need to get China to align with us on it—China the sovereign nation, not 1China centenals.”

  “I understand.” 1China is commercially powerful and popular enough to be consistently among the top ten global governments, but scattered and unsophisticated in geopolitical thinking beyond its own borders (within its borders, the government has a very sharp analysis indeed). They also haven’t invested much in military might, with China the country to back them up. The nation, while smaller than it used to be, is entrenched, secretive, mighty, and jealously guarded.

  “We’d like to broker a deal with them. Ideally, this would include their assistance in ending the war without—and this is paramount—without any harm to the centenals that lie between China and the combatants.”

  Mishima nods again; the worst-case scenario that has been floating around in the Information plazas has China, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan battling it out on top of the micro-democracy territory that is currently a buffer zone.

  “There’s also a less-immediate goal, although we think that now is the best time for it, with that war as a reminder of our … interconnectedness. We’d like to initiate greater mutual engagement with null states, starting with China.” Nejime runs through a sketch of the current ideas for improving the standing treaties with China. “Of course, all of this is just a draft until we have a better idea what their interests and thresholds are.” Weighty pause. “Unfortunately, we have a dearth of intel from China right now.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Our operative there was sent to the northwestern border to monitor fighting, and was killed in a mortar attack.”

  “Kazakhstan shelled China?” Mishima is sure she would have noticed if that happened.

  “He was in Kazakhstan at the time, on some kind of diplomatic mission.” Even Nejime, famously cold-blooded, looks grim.

  “It was a setup.”

  “We don’t have any evidence one way or another, but the assignment does seem unusual, given his profile.”

  “So, his cover may or may not have been blown.” Nejime nods. “If it was, will China guess that we’re likely to send in another agent?”

  “It’s possible. Although I have to say”—holding Mishima’s gaze—“if they knew, it’s unlikely they would have let him be killed without getting everything they could out of him first.”

  Mishima shuts that away from her mind. “And there was no evidence of that?”

  “None. But we have no conclusive evidence he wasn’t tortured. The body was … not in a condition to be examined.”

  “And if I go”—who is she kidding? They both know she’s hooked—“you need me to find out everything I can and then negotiate a deal? I start as a spy and turn into a diplomat? You think they’ll listen to me at that point?”

  “We think they will if you’re saying what they want to hear. But use your judgment: if you don’t think they’ll buy it, get out.”

  They’re talking as if it’s already decided. “Why me?” Mishima asks. “You must have people who have been immersed in this situation for months. Why bring me in suddenly?”

  “Three reasons. You were, although admittedly tangentially, involved with the negotiations with Heritage. You have a sense for the directions the system is moving and what our governments need from it. Secondly, you’ve spent time in a null state recently and even interacted with their government.”

  “Switzerland is hardly China. What’s the third reason?”

  “There is a position open in the central government for a narrative design consultant. It is a position uniquely suited to better understanding their perspective and goals, and one for which you—”

  But Mishima is already shaking her head, her ears cloudy as if she just lost atmospheric pressure. “You told them?” She wants to double over to retch or to get her breath back, but she forces herself to stay upright, palms rubbing hard against her thighs.

  “Your backstory—”

  “You told them?!”

  “Your cover identity has a mild narrative disorder, combined with years of experience in a major content factory in Singapore.”

  “Which one?” Mishima asks automatically. She is something of an expert in content factories; it is one of the side effects.

  “Moliner Productions.”

  Mishima nods, reluctantly. It is one of her preferred studios; she knows their catalog backward and forward. “Working for Poppy Chung?”

  “You will work for her, for a few days, while you inhabit your cover.”

  She sighs, lets herself cover her face with her hands. “You realize … if they suspect me, they’ll be able to use the disorder against me.” Plant narrative clues that turn her in the wrong direction, shape her perception of trends and trajectories, confuse her until they uncover her secrets …

  There is a silence long enough for Mishima to raise her head and meet Nejime’s steady gaze. “I’ve been watching you,” the older woman says. “I know you can handle it. You’ll be able to distinguish the narrative from the real.”

  That’s the difference between Nejime and Nougaz, Mishima reflects: Nougaz would have just given her that steely look and asked if she was ready to go. Any reassurance in Nejime’s approach is undermined by the fact that Mishima has long understood that the narrative is the real. At least for her.

  * * *

  Restless and unable to sleep, Roz climbs up to the roof of the office and stares out over the city. The birds hover on the tree, giving it a faint ghostly glow in the darkness. She imagines slipping out of the compound … and then what? Finding her way to Suleyman’s unmarked compound among all the other unmarked compounds near the hall? And if she did? She tries to picture herself moving soundless among those huts, finding the one where he is sleeping …

  The fantasy stops there. She can only imagine shock across his features: this crazy foreign woman, essentially breaking into his home.

  What if he came here? If, somehow, no one could hear them in the compound below, and they were alone and exposed to the sky …

  She’s not even sure he wants her.

  He does whispers from inside her.

  But maybe that’s just her own desire speaking.

  Even if he does, it would be insane. It would be counterproductive. Trust, impartiality, her career; it would threaten them all.

  But these rationalizations, these hard outlines in the night make no difference, and she paces the roof, unwilling to climb back down into the real world.

  * * *

  It is not until
Mishima’s on the flight to Singapore, with too much time to think and to wish she was flying instead to Saigon and Ken, that it occurs to her that it might be a trap. Why would they throw her in on such short notice? Maybe Nougaz is angry at her (For saving her life? No. For showing her up) and planned this whole thing out. Maybe this is how Information manages an unmanageable operative.

  Mishima turns on the onboard immersive content. She should have stayed a consultant.

  * * *

  Roz has just convinced herself that it really is time to climb down from the roof and go to bed when she hears a noise from the side of the office, the quick shuffling of someone coming up the rope ladder. She walks to the edge, more curious than alarmed, and sees the top of Minzhe’s head barreling toward her so quickly, she has to take a step back as he swings over the parapet.

  Minzhe doesn’t ask what she’s doing there. “Something’s about to happen,” he says, and walks to the western edge of the roof.

  Now Roz is alarmed. She follows him. “What? What do you mean?”

  Before he can answer, there is a deep boom, felt more than heard. The night is velvet black and quiet for about fifteen long seconds, and then another explosion goes off, a flash of light to the west. Roz blinks, and Information gives her a range of options for how far away the detonations are, depending on their size. The best guess is about a kilometer and a half, which doesn’t seem very far at all. She glances at Minzhe, but his face is tense and absent, and she guesses he’s listening to something through his earpiece. She looks down at the compound. There’s an almost-full moon, which seems like either a good or a bad time to mount an attack. The light casts faint shadows from the huts and the blocky offices and the ragged, stork-strewn tree. Nobody else seems to be up. Another flash, and Roz flinches.

  “What’s going on?” she asks Minzhe, feeling herself poised for the emergency.

  When he turns, she sees the projection playing against one of his eyes: something with a lot of movement. “It’s an attack,” he says, his voice disjointed, as though he were sight-translating into a foreign language. “By the ‘stateless people,’ whatever that means.”

  Roz gapes; whatever she was expecting, it was not that. “Are they attacking the town?”

  “I think so. This is far closer than they’ve ever gotten. All the other skirmishes were on the outskirts, near the centenal borders.”

  Before he’s finished the first sentence, Roz is requesting emergency security assistance, with a possible evac of up to ten (the four of the SVAT team, the four on Amran’s team, and a strategic rounding error). She knows as she sends, though, that it will take any security team at least an hour to get here, and that may well be too late.

  There’s a particularly loud explosion, and they both jump. “Are you linked in to the militia feed?” Roz asks.

  Minzhe nods. “I’m seeing exactly what whoever’s broadcasting sees. I think it’s…” He squints, probably trying to figure out who he’s not seeing. “Yusuf, maybe? Or they might have left him behind…”

  “Are they requesting that you join them in battle?” Roz asks. She’s not planning to allow it, but she wants to know.

  “No. The link to the feed is automatic for anyone on the list. No one’s asked me to go in. No one’s talked to me at all.” His voice drops. “I think they’ve forgotten I’m here.”

  Another distant bang, and Roz shivers. Then she can see, out there where the bangs were—there are not enough lights in Kas to give a good referent for where the town ends—headlamps. A trail of them, at least five or six, and behind them a string of unpaired, less disciplined glimmers: men on foot or, by the speed they are moving, horseback. She can see the headlamps, she realizes, because the vehicles are heading toward town.

  “How are we doing?” she asks Minzhe, hoping her voice sounds steady. She has been close to violence before, but never with security so far away. Never as the one in charge.

  “Seems about even so far.” Roz sees his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows. He’s frightened too. She should go wake everyone up. But to do what? Be frightened with her? If they can sleep through this, better to let them rest. She’ll get them up when she has a firm ETA on evac.

  It feels like Minzhe has been silent for too long. “Tell me,” Roz says.

  “It’s not easy to see what’s going on,” Minzhe answers a little defensively. “It’s dark, and whoever’s broadcasting the feed doesn’t have night vision. It looks like a sort of caravan, a group in a long formation, and they’ve got grenade launchers and … and some other explosives.”

  “And the militia?” Talking about it seems to calm him, and it’s definitely helping her.

  “Same kind of equipment,” he says quickly. “Ummm … not everyone is out there yet, but we had fifteen men on duty, and the rest are arriving as they can—there’s another small group coming in now.… It looks like they’re heading for the centenal hall.”

  Roz flinches.

  “Right now, we’re ranged along the mural wall, taking potshots when we can. I don’t think they’ll get by, the way it’s going.… The governor is out there too, I just saw him.”

  Roz bites the insides of her cheeks, furious at herself for the urge to suggest that Minzhe go fight after all. “Do you think they do this all the time?” she asks.

  “The fighting? Probably. But I haven’t heard any stories about defending the town. And I think I would have. They can’t just run away this time if they’re losing. Wow,” he adds. “The governor.”

  Roz waits, alone and blind on the rooftop while Minzhe watches the action a kilometer away.

  “Wow,” Minzhe says again. “He’s completely in this. No wonder they love him.”

  There’s a louder boom, and Roz ducks, though she knows it is too far away to reach them. But if the fighting gets closer, they are unprotected. What if the attackers are coming for them? Why would they suddenly attack if not because Information is here?

  “Who are these stateless people?” She checks for a response from the security team. What is taking them so long? “Nomads who didn’t get a centenal?”

  “My sense is more like mercenaries,” Minzhe says. Roz finally gets the response: security team has departed El Fasher, ETA eighty-three minutes. Maybe soon enough to save the compound. Maybe. Too late for the men defending the wall. She sets a countdown in the corner of her vision. “I’m not sure whether they are literally stateless, as in not having citizenship in any centenal, or if that’s sort of a euphemism for men who sell their violence.”

  “Sell to whom?” Roz wonders.

  “I don’t know,” Minzhe says. He sounds frustrated, and she should stop asking, but she can’t. “I hear the militia talking about Sudanese, Chadians, sometimes JusticeEquality, but I can’t tell if these are their eternal boogeymen or if they really are an imminent threat.”

  “What’s happening now?” Roz asks, hugging herself.

  “The reinforcements have arrived, at least some of them. Our reinforcements, I mean.”

  There’s a flash out where the fighting is, and then a bang. Roz blinks, and when she opens her eyes, she thinks some of the headlights have gone out. “What was that?”

  “A grenade,” Minzhe says. He is grinning. “We got one of their trucks.” A pause, and then: “They’re over the wall,” he says, and before she can gasp, “We! I mean we’re over the wall. Going after them with flamethrowers.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Look!” Minzhe points into the night, and she sees the wavering glimmer of the torches scattering in disarray. “It’s like they’re not used to fighting flamethrowers,” Minzhe says, wonderingly. “The horses hate it.”

  “I hate it too,” Roz says. She stretches her arms out, trying to get some of the tension out of her shoulders. “So, we’re winning?”

  “For the moment.” Minzhe stretches too, shakes his neck out. “It’s not over yet. The horsemen are coming around for another pass.” There’s a quick series of bangs, and Ro
z catches her breath. She can’t imagine how she’ll feel if Suleyman is killed. She barely knows the man, nothing seems real about him. “They’re rallying, and we’ve retreated back to this side of the wall.”

  “Casualties?” Roz asks, her mouth bitter.

  Minzhe shakes his head, no or I don’t know. “Wait—the vehicles have turned around.” Peering out at the night, Roz catches the last pair of headlights sweeping into obliqueness, then disappearing. “Aha! We’ve won!” Minzhe throws his fist in the air. “That last charge was to cover their retreat! They’re running away!”

  Roz lets out her breath and sits down on the roof. She leans her arms on the parapet and her head down on her arms so she looks more sleepy and less like she’s trying to hide her shaking. She updates her security request with a notation that the crisis has passed and waits. Normal protocol would be for the security team to finish the trip out anyway, debrief, and do a physical tour of the site, but there’s some discretion. Given the hour of the night and the fact that they’re only ten minutes out of their base in Fasher, maybe they’ll go home and do a virtual debrief tomorrow. Frankly, Roz can’t see how they could secure this compound short of digging a bunker. Right now she feels nauseous and tired and wants to go to bed and pretend for a few hours that this never happened. But if they tell her they’re coming, she’ll stay awake and wait, because that’s what team leaders do. “What’s going on out there?” she asks Minzhe.

  “Ahhhh. Ummmm,” Minzhe is saying. “It’s all still very confused. But the commander is calling them together now, so we’ll soon know.” A pause. Kneeling on the edge of a roof on a hot night, muscles weak as the adrenaline seeps out of them, she watches Minzhe’s handsome face in the darkness, projections playing against his eyes, lips moving slightly as though he’s trying to sound out a difficult passage. Sorting out a jumble of voices maybe, or making notes on the visuals.

  “He’s telling everyone good work, thanking them for their courage. They’re going to leave five soldiers on patrol tonight. Oh, shit … oh, shit.”

  “What? What?” Roz is on her feet again.