Borderless (An Analog Novel Book 2)

by Eliot Peper

  Diana touched Dag’s lower back lightly. He might flinch, but she wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. Even if he hated her with a zeal she deserved, she was here for him.

  Dag summoned poise from some unknown reserve, perhaps replenished by hours of sleeping on the plane. He was still gaunt and shaggy, but he was here, not lost in daymares of an Arctic cell. “You made me climb a mountain to meet you last time. I figured the least I could do was make you cross an ocean.”

  The corner of Hsu’s lip quirked. “I lost a substantial amount betting against you. Baihan made every effort to convince me to ignore you. What made you think I would come?”

  “You never struck me as the kind of man keen to repeat mistakes.”

  “And who are your charming companions?” Hsu looked Diana and Haruki up and down.

  Dag inclined his head to Diana. “She’s the one in charge here. I’m just a sidekick.”

  But Diana’s eyes were on the other person in the room. Javier stood before the far wall, the tips of his slender fingers on the glass, gazing out across the gleaming spines of Commonwealth skyscrapers to the flocks of seagulls floating above the ruffled silver of the San Francisco Bay. He was tall, skinny, and dressed in his customary black leather, as if channeling an aesthetic that was half-flaneur, half-ascetic. He might as easily have just returned from robbing an ancient tomb as from dashing off a philosophical treatise.

  “It’s good to hear your voice,” he said. “It’s been too long, Dag. We’ve missed you.”

  His large dark eyes sought Dag and then flicked back to Diana. His expression of wanting to say more than he could turned to consternation.

  “Yeah,” said Diana, giving him a wink. “We’ve met.”

  “I—”

  “Excuse us.” Relief flooded through Diana at the brisk tone of Sofia’s words. She had come through after all.

  Diana, Dag, and Haruki made way for Sofia, Rachel, and a small entourage of high-level Commonwealth executives. From her initial investigations of their corporate governance, Diana recognized the general counsel and chief financial officer. They filed into the room, flanking Rachel as she took her seat at the head of the table.

  Sofia looked at Diana, and they held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Diana could see smoke in the skies of Italy, feel the pangs of a homesickness for a place that no longer existed, and smell the instant ramen Sofia had subsisted on while supporting her family as she tried to make her way in this strange new country. A wave of affection washed over Diana, a sense of kinship, a desire to offer support that was unconditional, not tied to a quid pro quo that cheapened what might otherwise have grown into an authentic connection. There was only one thing she could offer Sofia now, a parting gift to bless the journey she had embarked on so many years ago.

  Freedom.

  Diana nodded once.

  Sofia nodded back, her straight face somehow both solemn and elated. Then she turned and left. The door slid silently shut behind her.

  The debt was forgiven.

  Everyone followed Rachel’s lead and took their seats. Everyone except Diana.

  Within these walls, America is our only soul mate. Helen’s words echoed inside Diana’s head, simultaneously inspiring a resurgence of conditioned guilt for what she was about to do, no matter how necessary it was, and a sudden awareness of how ludicrous those hollow words were. What Helen had really been saying was that Diana should owe nobody else loyalty, should reserve her trust for Helen alone. And what did Helen offer in return for such devotion? Special attention that affirmed Diana’s secret wish that she was unique, that she had a place in this universe, that her life meant something, that her actions were important.

  Diana laid the briefcase flat on the table. The well-worn grooves of habit told her to run, to lie, to spin a web of misdirection that would ensnare these power brokers and make them hers, and through her, Helen’s. Diana felt the leash of years of training tugging at her neck, urging her to reverse course, to return to the comforting structure of obedience. She looked from person to person, marshaling her thoughts. They stared back with curiosity, impatience, and skepticism. This time it was different. She was on the verge of something new, launching into the void of true autonomy.

  Diana’s gaze finally met Rachel’s. That single purple eye shone out from its nest of wrinkles like a beacon. Diana had observed Rachel from afar, watched her interact with colleagues, swim laps at the local pool, and head up to bed with her husband and their lover. But they had never seen each other face-to-face, and Rachel was not looking at her but through her, piercing the many veils Diana had wrapped around herself, not attacking or invading but seeking what might lie beneath, what could possibly have inspired this young woman she had never heard of to orchestrate a secret meeting with her senior team and two most prominent board members. A lesser CEO might have demanded an explanation posthaste, blood rising to her cheeks, voice straining under the weight of countless responsibilities, the ragged edges of her words colored by rage at time’s implacability in the face of a singular purpose that opened so many other doors. But Rachel just waited, quiet, calm, composed, comfortable in the knowledge that simply being present was in fact the rarest strength one could muster in the face of fate.

  “You’re all wondering why you’re here,” said Diana. “Each and every one of you has been screwed over in the past. You wouldn’t be at this table if you hadn’t figured out how to turn adversity into opportunity. Well, I’m here to tell you that no matter how badly you think you’ve been fucked before, no matter how badly your heart has been broken, your plans have been thrashed, your fortunes have been sacked, or your spirit has been shattered, it’s the smallest slice of nothing compared to the shitstorm that is currently bearing down on Commonwealth. Now I’m no history buff, but Dag here has a special penchant for the past, and I think that even he would agree that this is a clusterfuck of historical proportions and that what you decide to do with the information I’m about to share will shape the future all of us are going to live through or die for.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Silence reigned as Diana delivered her presentation. There were no interruptions, no questions, just the gradual draining of blood from cheeks and a general shortening of breath. She found a rhythm as she laid out the situation, feeling like a World War I–era artilleryman loading high-explosive shells into a mortar again and again and again as the enemy huddled in their trenches under the barrage. The secrets in her arsenal were more incendiary than even the most advanced weaponry at the Pentagon’s disposal, and she would need every last one of them plus a mountain of luck. Standing in front of these people, offering up hard-earned intel for expert inspection, she felt naked. But rather than the crushing social anxiety of a dream in which nudity becomes apparent only after taking the stage, this nakedness was exhilarating, a bold first step into a new world.

  “Now that you know what’s going on,” said Diana, her tone signaling the end of the pitch, “we need to get all of you to a safe house where we can discuss next steps. With Helen preparing to raid Commonwealth, we can’t risk having the only people able to decide how to respond getting swept up in the initial arrests. A satisfactory place has already been arranged.” She signaled Haruki, who stood up. “If you’ll all collect your things, we have cars waiting below.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Commonwealth’s general counsel. “We aren’t going anywhere. There won’t be any arrests. Our executive team and board of directors have done nothing wrong, and we have more than sufficient legal resources to tear apart any drummed-up charges. If even half of what you’re saying is true, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s harboring doubts about your story”—she looked around for support—“then we’ll have it thrown out by a federal judge faster than you can say bullshit. Hell, I hope they try something like this. We’ll be able to milk the blowback from the false accusations and government overreach to weaken any regulations the feds try to throw at us for the next few years. Journalists
will have a field day. I doubt we’ll be so lucky, though. No offense, Ms. . . .” She waited in vain for Diana to supply a surname. “But this plot of yours is really quite far fetched. I’ll have my analysts look into your claims, and we can have our government-affairs people make some calls on the Hill. If there’s anything actually here, we’ll nail it down and circumvent.”

  Hsu tapped his cane on the floor. “I’ve heard nothing about this from my contacts in Washington. If the White House was planning an operation of this magnitude, it would be hard to keep under wraps. Furthermore, if the US government were to make such a move based on falsified evidence, it will create an international incident. The rest of the world won’t acquiesce when they see the Lopez administration try to seize power over the feed. At the very least, trade sanctions will be issued, and countries will start divesting from infrastructure that’s dependent on Commonwealth. It will weaken the feed and America’s standing at the same time. I know Lopez. He’s a moderate, reasonable man whose priority is stability and incremental social progress. He would never do something like this.” He glanced at Dag. “I’m surprised, Mr. Calhoun. I would not have expected you to rush me over from Taiwan just to listen to some conspiracy theory.”

  Javier had been staring at Diana quizzically throughout the conversation. She could see him putting the pieces together, trying to figure out who she was and where he had seen her before.

  “I wish it were just a theory,” said Dag. “But unfortunately for all of us, what Diana’s saying is true. Hard to believe, certainly, but true. I was kidnapped by a black ops team last week because Helen suspected I knew something about her plans and might provide her with additional leverage over Diana.”

  Everyone looked at Dag.

  “Wait, what?” asked Javier. “Kidnapped? What are you talking about?”

  The chief financial officer threw up his hands. “Okay, enough already,” he said. “We have a company to run. I’m not wasting an entire afternoon on some crackpot circus. Go live out your soap opera somewhere else. This is a monumental waste of time.”

  “Amen,” said the general counsel, rising to her feet. “I don’t know how this got onto our calendars, but we can all pretend this meeting never happened and just get on with the day.”

  Diana saw her own failings in the group’s predictable objections. When faced with an uncomfortable truth, people’s first instinct was to ignore it, justifying denial with the same assumptions that girded their obsolete mental model. If she had only thought bigger, been more skeptical, asked harder questions, she might have unraveled what was going on far earlier and been able to avert disaster. She wouldn’t have helped lay the groundwork for the impending raid. She would have demanded more background before picking up that fateful vial of synthetic venom amid the flowering jacarandas of Buenos Aires so many years ago. Now her only option was to do what she could with the time she had.

  Summoning a shared feed, Diana dropped in a video clip from the recorded board meeting. That they were sitting in the very same room at this very moment made the footage feel both intimate and surreal, as if every word spoken in the past, every action taken, did not fade into time’s relentless current but lived on in karma’s ghostly inventory.

  “Look,” said Hsu. “What we really need to do is organize back-channel conversations with governments and their UN representatives, assure them that the carbon tax was a . . . one-time thing. We’re not a threat to their authority. We’re not encroaching on their sovereignty. We’re a partner. We’re here to make it easier for them to run their own countries. This Lopez interview was a shot across the bow. If we don’t convince world leaders that we’re friendly and obedient, they’re going to ram new regulations down our throats.”

  “That’s the absolute last thing we should do,” Javier snapped. “Open your eyes. Nation states are dying. The economy, the environment, the feed, everything is global now. Governments are so focused on ensuring their institutional survival that they’re failing the people they claim to serve. Even if they tried, they don’t have the tools to deal with global problems.”

  Diana paused the replay, the expressions of her current audience as frozen as the recorded phantoms overlaid on their vision.

  “Helen had me running surveillance on Commonwealth leadership to give her the material necessary to orchestrate this raid,” said Diana. “I didn’t know what her ultimate goals were at that time. My orders were to sniff out weaknesses, map out key relationships, and build an extensive personal file on Rachel. Haruki here was a cutout hired to relay those orders to me to protect the identity of the principals.”

  Haruki nodded confirmation.

  “I recorded the board meeting with cameras hidden in the flower arrangement and submitted the footage back up through the chain of command along with the rest of the data I collected. From there—”

  Javier slapped the table and everyone jumped. “I saw you,” he said. “I saw you as I was heading to the elevators. I knew I recognized you.”

  Diana inclined her head. “That’s right.”

  She called up images of Rachel working in the atrium’s redwood grove, climbing out of the pool, water cascading off wrinkled skin that concealed sinewy strength, and chopping heirloom tomatoes in her kitchen. A tangible hush descended. In the minimalist elegance of the corporate conference room, these candid personal shots of Commonwealth’s founder were incongruent and disturbing.

  “When you’re looking to frame someone, particularly people as powerful as the folks around this table, you go the distance,” said Diana. “Trade secrets, financial shenanigans, and strategic priorities can sometimes pale in comparison to knowledge of the principals’ personal lives, proclivities, and motivations. That information wouldn’t be relevant in a legitimate investigation of suspected malfeasance. That I was tasked to assemble a full take on Rachel is what initially tipped me off that this operation went far deeper than I thought.” She dropped the rest of her reports into the shared feed. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In these files you’ll find extensive documentation of every bit of questionable behavior, competitive intelligence, and organizational weakness I discovered over the course of the investigation.”

  The lawyer spoke up again. “We are going to sue the shit out of them.”

  “This is certainly troubling,” said Hsu, “but the fact is that nobody here has actually done anything that would justify the raid you claim is imminent. Certainly nothing that could be used to ‘nationalize’ Commonwealth. That’s an entirely different league of abuse of power.”

  Diana unclasped the briefcase, opened it, and spun it around to face the table. As she did so, Haruki handed out paper packets to each person. Everyone frowned, flipping through the pages and trying to skim for the gist. Everyone but Rachel, whose eye remained steady on Diana, a spotlight that held her in its lilac thrall.

  “You’re right,” said Diana. “My investigation yielded results that would serve you going after the US government rather than the other way around. But my investigation was only step one of a larger operation. Helen isn’t trying to find skeletons in your closet, she wants to plant them there. She used details gleaned from my reports to fabricate this physical evidence of treason, padding it with legitimate classified intel from within the American intelligence community. In these papers you’ll find documentation of sales of state secrets to foreign governments. They claim you accessed CIA, NSA, and White House feed databases, pulled critical intel, and auctioned it off to Mr. Hsu’s personal connections using Javier’s frequent speaking trips as cover. All of you were rewarded handsomely with transactions hidden within matryoshka-like layers of fake accounts created and linked to you by Helen’s analysts. The paperwork you’re holding is the intelligence equivalent of a nuclear weapon. Its discovery would yield a scandal large enough to justify a draconian response, at least temporarily. Seizing control of Commonwealth might even be welcomed by an international community that suddenly realizes that their own secrets migh
t be at risk.”

  Diana rested her hands on top of the open briefcase. “That was stage two of my mission. Plant this in Rachel’s office and then have someone inside deliver it to a journalist who would break the story, justifying Helen’s raid as necessary and appropriate. As soon as her people took the helm, she could use root access to the feed to acquire precisely the kind of state secrets she claimed you stole, leveraging them to bring every world leader into her personal sphere of influence. That was going to be stage three.”

  “But you brought the evidence to us instead,” said Javier.

  “That’s right,” said Diana.

  “So her plan fails,” said Hsu. “Without the evidence, she can’t justify the raid.”

  “It makes it harder to justify to the public or the international community,” said Diana. “But Helen knows I flipped, and she’s going for broke. She has enough to convince Lopez to sign off on the raid itself. But stage three changes. Instead of going slow, she has to throttle up. Otherwise other countries will realize it’s foul play, especially given that any ‘evidence’ presented would be ex post facto. So as soon as she takes Commonwealth, she will use feed blackouts to subdue an unsuspecting world. Physical conquest is trivial when the other side can’t use any equipment or infrastructure and their entire country shuts down.” Diana could almost smell the cloying scent of Michelia champaca. If we move quickly and do things right, we can put Genghis Khan to shame. “It’s old-fashioned empire building.”

  “Damn,” Javier murmured to himself.

  Hsu rubbed the knob of his cane, lost in thought.

  “Seriously? Seriously?” asked the CFO, directing his disbelief at the rest of the room, not Diana. “This isn’t Star Wars. Crazy conspiracies like this are great for feed dramas, but they just don’t happen in the real world. There is no fucking way that the US government is just going to take over the world via the feed. Helen, whoever she is, most definitely isn’t Alexander the Great. We all just need to calm down, take a step back, and see what parts of this story we can actually confirm. Once we have enough information, we can decide on appropriate next steps, the first of which, as Liane says”—he motioned to the general counsel—“is likely to be a lawsuit.”