Null States

by Malka Older

  “We’ve been looking,” Malakal says heavily. He doesn’t like checking up on one of their own any more than Roz does. “Nothing yet.”

  “Maybe he didn’t do it,” Roz answers.

  Malakal doesn’t answer.

  * * *

  Simone comes back after lunch—an unsettled meal with too many people and too few chairs—and Roz, deciding that she needs to get out of the office anyway, invites her to go out for coffee.

  “It’s a model designed specifically for soft sand,” Simone tells Roz when she notices her eyeing the bases of her prostheses as they walk through the market. She lifts a leg to show the bottom of the foot, angled and vented. “You’ll probably have boots with soles like this in a year or two.”

  Roz is heading for Zeinab’s, but when they get there, Simone wants to walk the whole mural wall. “I got a glimpse of it earlier while we were going over the lay of the land, but I didn’t get to read many of them.” They walk it both ways, Simone occasionally chuckling or exclaiming over a cartoon. Roz is achy with the sun and the tension, but she’s oddly proud to see Simone appreciating the murals.

  “So, how did it look?” All she really wants to ask is what Simone thought of Suleyman, whether he is really as fascinating and dedicated and brilliant as Roz imagines he is, but she has some interest in the security situation as well.

  “Not too bad.” They pick a table in the spotty shade. Roz motions for coffee. “The governor has some sense when he’s not erupting—nice job standing up to him this morning, by the way. You defused the situation without giving in; super. He handed me off to the militia commander, who took me through their routine and concerns.”

  That’s good enough for Roz to feel momentarily satisfied.

  “I mean, you can only do so much to guard an entire centenal,” Simone goes on, “but they seem to be doing the best they can with their limited resources. I can’t imagine attacks like the one they had last night are commonplace.”

  “They did tell you about the other skirmishes, though?” Roz notices her language. Skirmishes. Downplaying it.

  “They mentioned something earlier this week but said it normally only happens once a month or so.”

  “That’s still too often,” Roz says. “They need … something. An inter-government consortium, a regional police force—something to keep the peace in the long term.”

  “Definitely,” Simone agrees. She pours her coffee into its tiny ceramic cup, takes a sip, shivers. “Whoo! Good stuff. Reminds me of Doha.”

  “Were you able to ask around about the other thing?” After Simone left the compound with Suleyman, Roz sent her a file with all the data they have on the elusive IntelliStream consultants.

  “I did ask.” She sends Roz a file, which Roz opens discreetly at eyeball level. It’s a survey graph, very professional. “No one admitted to meeting or knowing of this group. I spoke with 72% of the salaried staff at the centenal office and, incidentally, six members of the militia.”

  “I’m sure they were happy to talk to you.” Roz says, and hears her own voice overly acid.

  “I can’t be sure everyone was telling the truth,” Simone answers, “but everyone was polite. Wary, maybe. The militia seems split; there were definitely some of them who were avoiding me, and a few dirty looks. But the ones who spoke to me seemed relieved.”

  “Relieved that Minzhe was released and they’re unlikely to have to go to war with 888?”

  Simone snorts. “Ha! No. Relieved that someone else, someone from the big leagues who knows what they’re doing, is taking charge of things.”

  That’s a little scary but an interesting perspective nonetheless. “Speaking of which. Is there enough evidence to sanction 888?”

  “Not 100% yet, but I think we’ll manage.” Simone shakes her head. “Can you imagine? Pulling something like that?”

  “If she thought Minzhe might be executed?” Roz reminds her.

  “Still.”

  “Yeah. By the way,” Roz goes on, taking a sip of her own coffee, “I was wondering if you or one of your staff could stay through the election, just in case…” But Simone is already shaking her head.

  “Not that I don’t think it’s a good idea, but there’s no way we can do it. Everyone is on standby for Xinjiang.”

  “Everyone?”

  “The front has shifted almost two hundred kilometers east over the past week. China is getting nervous. I’ll be shocked if we’re not redeployed there within forty-eight hours.”

  * * *

  With Minzhe back safe and security people in town, the team is going to go out that night and celebrate. Malakal has been quietly encouraging this, and the InfoSec team is eager to see what limited nightlife there is. Roz is grateful Malakal is here so she doesn’t feel obliged to go and keep up morale herself. She is shut into her hut before they even leave, a cool cloth on her forehead, trying not to think.

  She might have fallen asleep; she certainly has no idea what time it is when she hears the knock on the door. At least she feels a little better. She swings her legs off the bed and goes to the door, running a hand through her hair.

  Suleyman stands there. His usual turban has been swapped for a simple white cap, and his robes glow in the darkness of the compound. He smiles at her surprise. “May I come in?”

  Roz’s brain jerks through conflicting impulses: of course not, that’s not allowed here; of course, he knows better than she does what’s acceptable; yes, right now. She steps aside, and he steps in.

  Roz closes the door and turns to him. “What are you doing here?” The compound is full of people, inordinately suspicious strangers. Is there still a guard on the door?

  “I came to apologize.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “No,” he agrees. “I didn’t. But when I am emotional, people sometimes find it … frightening.”

  “Did I look frightened?”

  “No.” That smile. “In fact, you may have scared me a little.”

  Oh, a man who can admit he was scared. Roz smiles at him, with reassurance or relief, and gets caught in his eyes. She can’t look away.

  “I should go,” Suleyman says, but his fingers have somehow found hers.

  Just in time, Roz remembers to turn off her recorder. “Stay.” It comes out low and unmistakably urgent.

  He takes a rough breath. “Every night,” he whispers, “I dream of nothing else.” He presses his lips to her palm, and then he is gone.

  Roz forces herself not to follow him to the gate, not to stand in the doorway of her hut and watch him go. She locks the door behind him and starts to pace. She walks the hut from one side to the other, tracing every possible diameter not blocked by her bed or her suitcase.

  Finally, she gives in and calls Maryam.

  “Habibti.” Maryam’s voice is rough with sleep, her face lit only by the glow of Roz’s lights projected through her handheld.

  “I woke you, I’m sorry, I’ll call you back.”

  “No no no, what are you talking about?” Maryam is sitting up, tapping on a bedside lamp, smiling. “Now. How are you? What is going on?”

  Roz lets it all out in a rush: Minzhe, the strange face-off that morning, this sudden visit, although she elides the last exchange.

  “Oh, wow,” Maryam sighs. “This is amazing.”

  Despite herself, Roz relaxes. They gush over Suleyman for a while. When the conversation smoothes into more mundane issues, Roz remembers she had a question for Maryam. “Did you ever get a chance to follow up on the low-intel infrastructure? Have you found it anywhere else?”

  “I’m sorry, we’ve been working nonstop on the war; I just haven’t had a chance to do anything else.”

  “You too.” It’s unnerving that they no longer need to identify it by location. The war. Roz shivers.

  “I’ll put someone on it tomorrow,” Maryam is saying.

  “No!” Roz says, without thinking. “No, I’d rather you did it yourself.”

  T
here’s a long pause. “You think someone in Information might be involved.”

  Roz remembers what Amran said about intel vanishing. “I’m not sure,” she says. “But I don’t want to take the chance.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Roz replays the touch, the words, all night, slipping into a dreaming half-sleep at some point before dawn. She is not entirely upset when she wakes up too late to go to Zeinab’s before work. What would they do, hold hands under the table? What would she say? She’s sick of feeling like a teenager in luv, mooning around after this man with his minimalist expressions of affection and his impossibility. She has real work to do. She has responsibilities.

  This morning, those responsibilities begin with seeing off the security team, returning to Abyei with almost certain redeployment to Xinjiang. She waits until the crow has faded into the distance, then climbs down from the roof, wondering if it’s too late to catch Suleyman at the café. She might not have many more opportunities to feel that glow. And they should talk about what happened last night, shouldn’t they?

  Instead, she sleepwalks into the office. Where she jerks awake with a pseudo-shock: an urgent call. She walks out again as she answers, expecting Nejime with some new bombshell: Heritage has collapsed completely, or Policy1st is fighting the five-year term with a secession plan of their own.

  It’s Nougaz, and she doesn’t waste time on small talk. “Roz. The Asian frontier is wobbling. I want you on a SVAT team in Urumqi immediately.”

  Roz opens her mouth, expecting the thrill of pleasant adrenaline for a sudden, urgent, potentially world-saving deployment, and doesn’t find it. “I’m neck-deep in the investigation into the DarFur assassination,” she says. “If there’s anyone else available…”

  “There isn’t!” Nougaz snaps. “We’re sending teams to six different centenals just to start, and we need people with your experience there immediately!”

  “All right, I’ll start handover to my team…” Roz is already sorting files by what Maria doesn’t have or hasn’t read, but Nougaz cuts her off.

  “They’re going too. Didn’t you hear me? Six different centenals, and we may need to expand to more! We should have more people there already; the complexity of dealing with null states has held us back far too long. What you’re doing in DarFur isn’t a SVAT matter anymore. You can talk to Nejime about a non-SVAT replacement; I’m sure she’ll authorize it. So, pack up. I’m sending you a briefing packet now. Be ready; this is far more serious than we’d realized.”

  Roz stands there, stunned, until the heat prickles down into her scalp and wakes her. She turns to the door of the office, sticks her head in. “We’re about to be redeployed to Xinjiang,” she tells Maria, who looks up, startled. “You’ll be getting a call.”

  She ducks back out before Maria can ask her anything, goes to her hut, and starts packing her bags. She stops again, half-packed. It’s going to take time to get someone out here, so the replacement request has to be the priority. She checks to see if Mishima is online, more for her input than because she thinks she would agree to take the job, but she’s nowhere to be found. Again Roz feels a shiver of unease. The next three people that come to mind have already been deployed to Xinjiang.

  Roz is suddenly filled with despair, as though this is a climactic and hopeless battle where all the soldiers of Information are preparing to meet their ends. But of course not: Information needs its SVAT teams, its best and brightest. If it’s a choice between losing them or losing a few centenals, they’ll be evacuated. And then she feels guilty, because losing centenals doesn’t mean a clean transfer of ownership. It’s not the status of micro-democracy they’re talking about; it’s hundreds of thousands of people subjected to war. Which makes her both miserable and terrified all over again, because will Information really know when to pull them out? She wants to throw up, thinks about going to the latrine to do so, but she’s a professional, and besides, fuck it. If this is how she’s going to go out, well, she doesn’t have any other plans. Feeling pathetic is better than feeling terrified and guilty, so she sticks with it. Now she has to figure out how to say good-bye to Suleyman.

  * * *

  Ken is in Saigon when Roz reaches him. He always feels strange being there when Mishima is away. This is by far the nicest apartment he’s ever lived in: airy, with huge windows, recovered hardwood floors, balloon lights, fine furniture but not enough for clutter, strange bits of useful art on the walls, and on the master drive the largest collection of narrative content he’s ever seen. With Mishima, it feels like home, an exotic, luxurious home, but still home. Without Mishima, it feels empty but also exciting, unfamiliar, slightly illicit, like he’s a teenager who’s snuck into his best friend’s apartment while they’re away. He wants to jump on the beds, play projections at top volume, invite all his friends to come stay so they can see what a nice place he’s got now.

  Ken hasn’t heard much from Roz since the election, but they message every now and then with short updates. That’s more or less what he’s expecting when she calls.

  “Hey, how are you? Long ti—”

  “Ken, can you come to DarFur right now to take over for me on a complicated election-monitoring assassination-investigation mission?”

  What’s he going to say to that? “Sure! I’ll, um…”

  “I’ll have Nejime contact you with the details, but if I were you, I’d start packing. I’ll send you my files.” And she’s gone.

  Ken has to sit on the couch for a moment after that. Then he starts packing. He’s already finished when the contract and travel authority comes through, a scant half-hour later, from the Doha Information Hub. It’s real. He has to call his boss.

  He dithers for a while, considering another round of sick days, but that tactic is getting old. Besides, this is not a silly speaking engagement about what he used to do. This is working for Information!

  Phuong is grumpy about it. He has missed a lot of days recently, and Free2B is launching a new initiative to boost referendum participation with auto-personalized messages he’s supposed to be working on. Mentioning Information helps, but when he offers to take unpaid leave, she negotiates him into clocking in at least a few hours on the auto-personalization while he’s away. “I suppose it’s a skills-building experience,” she says finally. “From now on, tell me when you’ve got something like this going on!”

  Four hours later (oh, the efficiency! Nothing like working for Policy1st), Ken is on a flight for Juba.

  * * *

  It takes Roz a lot less than four hours to depart for Urumqi. SVAT administrative processes are highly streamlined, and it helps to have a dedicated crow, which zooms in from Bangui, already loaded with three SVAT members who were deployed there. The planned departure is delayed only briefly, and then they are skimming toward the steppe. The flight is long and tense; Roz turns up her music and tries not to think about the last few weeks, the last few days, or especially the last few hours.

  She almost didn’t say goodbye to Suleyman. It had crossed her mind that she could leave without seeing him, blame the urgency, and send him a message from six thousand kilometers away: nice knowing you. Just thinking about it gives her a sense of detachment, like frost forming on a window—something, it occurs to her, that Suleyman has probably never seen. But she couldn’t do it. And so, with her bags packed, files sent to Ken, and handover notes maybe one-tenth done, she marched over to the centenal hall.

  He wasn’t there, not sitting out front, and not in his office. Roz checked the timing: eighteen minutes until the crow would arrive. She walked back out to the market, scanning the alleys and byways. She started to feel ridiculous, and twitched her fingers to open up a call with him, only to realize that she had never called him, always depending on chance, unspoken agreement, or initiative to meet. Once leaving without seeing him seemed inevitable, it suddenly seemed intolerable. She was searching her files for his contact details when she heard her name called.

  She had returned almost to the doo
r of the centenal hall, and it was from there that Suleyman was calling her. When she didn’t immediately move, he hurried forward to greet her.

  “Roz! Is this true what I’ve heard? You—your team is leaving?”

  Roz nodded, unable to speak with the relief of seeing him.

  “You are leaving?”

  “Yes,” Roz managed finally. “I’m sorry.”

  He lowered his voice. “Is it because of yesterday, yesterday evening? Or”—an afterthought, with a ghost of his usual smile—“yesterday morning?”

  Roz, suddenly aware of how exposed they were in the middle of a market street, shook her head. “No, of course not! It’s for work; we’ve all been redeployed.” It doesn’t feel like enough. “I had no choice.”

  Suleyman said nothing to that, but Roz heard herself instead. How many times, coolly debating international diplomacy or organizational politics, had she derided the telling fallacy of that phrase? “I’m sorry,” she said again. The numbers blinked against her vision: three minutes left. She wasn’t going to make it back to the compound in time. “I have to go,” she said. “We’re leaving now.”

  “What about Al-Jabali?” Suleyman asked. “Will you find his assassins?”

  “We will. Someone will,” Roz said, knowing it sounded weak. “We haven’t given up on this. There’s a war.”

  He leaned toward her, just a little, and for a moment she thought, This is it, the impossible kiss. But in DarFur, you cannot kiss in the street, or even hold hands. Instead, he whispered: “I didn’t think—I don’t know if it had anything to do with his assassination. But Al-Jabali wanted—he was hoping to win more autonomy.”

  “What?” It made no sense. Governments are autonomous under micro-democracy, almost entirely. “I don’t understand. What did he do?”

  Suleyman shook his head. “Those consultants. I’ve been thinking. I think I know which ones you mean. I knew there was something odd about them, what they were doing, because I never met them, never approved anything, never heard any reports about their work. But Al-Jabali always let me get away with not knowing what I did not want to know.”