by Malka Older
“Not at all,” Roz says. In fact, she finds it entertaining to watch how matter-of-factly Djukic goes about getting herself drunk. Probably a requirement for surviving as an environmental engineer in this age of environmental destruction. Especially if you’re willing to work on things like the mantle tunnel.
“Why are you working on the mantle tunnel?” Roz asks some time later. Even just drinking herbal tea, she’s feeling more relaxed, and nothing should offend Djukic after the quantity of schnapps she’s ingested.
Indeed, Djukic shrugs without ire. “If I don’t do it, who are they going to hire?” It seems like a rhetorical question, but she pauses for a moment as though waiting for Roz to answer. Just as Roz is getting ready to say something, she goes on. “They’ll hire someone who doesn’t care as much as I do, that’s who. Someone who’ll set up some pretty, very pretty, very fragile straw people”—she shapes them in the air—“very pretty, very convenient environmental concerns that will be very easy to fix, and then they will tell them how to fix them, probably with a product they sell.” Djukic is drifting now, gestures getting wider as she follows her tangent. “Yes, maybe they’ll sell it like greenwashing, but often, they find a way to ask someone to pay them for using the extra land or material or whatever to make it supposedly safer, and then—”
She pauses for a sip, and Roz dives into the breach. “It must be frustrating, though. Do they listen to you?”
Djukic expels her breath in a well-marinated laugh. “They listen to me exactly as much as they have to,” she says, tilting her glass and rolling it around on its edge until Roz taps in an order for another shot. “Actually”—Djukic perks up after the first sip—“that’s the fun part.”
“Oh?” Roz asks, taking a sip of her cooling tea in solidarity.
“Yeah, figuring out how to make it seem like they have to listen this time. You know”—leaning in conspiratorially—“finding the combination of legit danger, potential expense, and public relations damage that will make them shell out more cash.” She cackles. “I know you get it, Roz!”
Roz feels the sudden warmth of unexpected inclusion along with the slight unease she always gets when she wonders whether someone has figured out where she’s from and what that means. It’s silly, because the data is not only public but obvious to anyone who looks at where she’s from. The name Mwanza has ceased to be a place for most people and become a shorthand for environmental disaster. But she has obscured it by using the old village word for her now-underwater neighborhood, and so few people bother look it up that it feels like a close-kept secret. “I understand why you do it,” she says at last. Her voice sounds formal and restrained compared to Djukic’s loose warmth. “But how do you manage it without”—without feeling incredibly sad? without triggering major depression?—“without giving up?”
Djukic drinks. “I’m afraid of what will happen—to me, to my children, to their children if they choose to have any, to everyone—if I give up.”
“That’s … a lot,” Roz says. She has just figured out why she is so interested: she is imagining an alternate career, a different mission for herself, if she had chosen the Earth instead of data, nature instead of government, engineering instead of analysis. “How can you live that way?”
“You’re right. You’re right, of course. It is very hard. All I can do is hope that somehow, by doing this, I make things a little less bad. Even if it’s just a little. And”—she cheers suddenly—“I know my friends are doing the same! There are many of us.” She claps Roz on the shoulder. “I’ll introduce you!”
* * *
Amran’s cover story about developing content for a diaspora love story is, as per best practices, based on truth. There is a sizable Somali-descent community in Guelph, although not in the Liberty centenal. Some come direct from the horn, primarily out of Baidoa, and there are also a substantial number of second-order immigrants who moved from Dearborn decades ago, when the United States collapsed. Dalmar Dualeh, who falls into the latter group, attends the largest mosque in the centenal, and Amran turns her steps there with hope and wariness. This is the superpower she gains for being part of a small, proud, and poorly understood community: an intel source she can tap that Mishima and the other super spies cannot. But being among Somalis makes her feel more nervous about her cover identity: surely, someone there will have an aunty or a friend or a former colleague who will be able to disprove it? She takes comfort in the fact that few of them are from Nairobi, as both she and her cover identity are, and eventually relaxes into the familiarity of the language heard without auto-interpretation, the ritual, and, after prayer, the food.
At the restaurant that many of the young people adjourn to after prayer, she manages to seat herself next to her target. She doesn’t have to do much; he introduces himself, with charm, as Dalmar, and chats her up about the content factory (“Somallywood, huh?”) and Nairobi before turning the conversation to him. As she already knew from Information, he’s an algorithmic logistician for a new regional transport start-up. “So, if you decide you want to go to Niagara or Toronto during your visit, just let me know,” he says with a wink, passing her his data via line-of-sight.
“Oh, thanks,” Amran says. This seems too easy. Disoriented by his interest, she doesn’t mean to sound unimpressed, but it must come across that way, because he goes on with a smile.
“That’s just my day job, though.” He leans forward, smile getting bigger. “Mostly, I’m a spy.”
“A … spy?” Amran asks, wondering if this is some kind of trap.
Dalmar leans back, pleased with himself. “Not a government spy, of course. Just someone who collects intel and passes it along.”
Amran is catching up with herself and is able to creditably play naïve. “To Information, you mean?”
He laughs, perfect white teeth gleaming before his mouth falls back into the default friendly smile. “Not exactly.” He leans forward. “You can keep a secret, right?”
He can’t be serious. “Sure,” Amran says, offering a smile of her own. “Try me.”
“There are other data channels besides Information. I work for one of them.”
Amran laughs, because she doesn’t know what else to do. “You mean a compiler?”
“No, no.” Dalmar is whispering now. “There are these new channels. Most people don’t know about them yet, but they’re going to blow up soon. But they need intel that isn’t already available on Information; that’s why my spying is important.”
Amran keeps playing disbelief. “What new channels? You’re making this up!”
“No, they’re real, like—like the tour guides; have you seen those?”
Amran shakes her head.
“I can show you,” he says, voice still low. “But not here.”
Wary, Amran laughs again as though she’s still not taking it seriously. “If it’s such a big secret, why did you tell me? You don’t even know me.”
Dalmar leans back, confident and suave. “Everyone will know soon enough. But I don’t want these guys to get the same idea and start cutting into my profits. Getting in early is how you get the advantage! Which reminds me.” He winks. “You’re from Nairobi, right? I know they’re looking for people all over the world. And if you join, I can get a bonus.”
Ah.
“You could do the same,” Dalmar adds quickly. “Once you’re in, I mean.”
Amran’s still not convinced this is more than an elaborate pickup line, but knowing what’s in it for him makes it more plausible. She decides Idil, a sophisticated content designer, would be skeptical too. “So … you’re telling me you work an exciting, attractive, clandestine job, and you have no evidence of its existence?” She smiles indulgently.
Dalmar laughs self-consciously. “I can show you, but not here.” Amran raises an eyebrow and he holds out upturned palms. “We can’t let it show up on Information, right? Not until we’re ready to launch.”
Launch? “How does the intel get to anyone, then?”<
br />
“There are ways,” Dalmar says, relaxing back into his seat. “For example, sometimes they use paper.”
Amran is skeptical. “That can’t possibly reach very many people. Or travel far. Is this a local operation?”
“It’s very local,” Dalmar says, proudly. “But globally connected as well. You know, like a government.”
Amran doesn’t know.
“You don’t have to join with us,” Dalmar says, worried again. “But you should be careful. I know content designers are going to be in high demand, and there are other groups that might try to recruit you…”
An alert makes Amran miss his next few sentences: one of her searches has returned a success. It’s Langer’s facial recognition, but not from the hotel, and not from Anarchy. Langer’s face belongs to Gowri Misra, a former low-level Information analyst at the Delhi Hub who disappeared two and a half years ago.
Amran stares at the two images, too startled even to pretend she’s staring at Dalmar instead, although hopefully that’s what it looks like. There are differences between the faces, as one would imagine after more than two years of hard living in a null state, but it is the same woman, or her twin. Exformation! Energy shoots through Amran, and suddenly she has to move.
“Let’s go for that walk after all,” she tells Dalmar, pulling up a map at eye level to direct her toward Misra/Langer’s hotel.
“Sure!” he says, and chatters on amiably as they go. He occasionally tries to suggest a different turn, but Amran’s determined stride brooks no dissent. She catches shreds of his conversation (“… see, it’s all in how you look at things…” “… people don’t like Information…” “… amazing opportunity…”) but she’s preoccupied. The mythic status of the rogue Information staff has grown every day that they have evaded capture. Public conversation might have been muted by the usual misdirection and downplaying, but in the corridors of the Information Hubs, people still whisper rumors about where they went, what they are planning, why they took such a desperate step. Amran is sure she’s not the only staffer who has fantasized about finding one of the elusive criminals and bringing them to justice, or (better) single-handedly tricking valuable intel out of them. She thought she had correctly identified that as an impossible daydream and not something that might happen in real life.
The route to the hotel skirts the Liberty centenal, and almost as soon as they step across the border, one of the myriad pop-up ads littering her view jumps out at her, flower-child lettering in a glittery gold font: Vote Free2B, and be yourself during your golden years!
Amran stops cold, staring at it. Dalmar, who has taken another few steps, realizes she’s fallen behind and turns back. “What is it?”
“This ad,” Amran manages. “It’s odd. Do you see it?”
Dalmar does a double-take. “Free2B,” he says slowly, and then shakes his head. “Never heard of them.” He adds brightly, “Do you know anything about them?”
“No, not about the government,” Amran lies. “But look at the ad. It’s targeting old people. We shouldn’t even be seeing it.”
Dalmar looks at her with admiration. “See? You’re so observant. You’ll be perfect for this job.”
“I have a job,” Amran says automatically.
“So do I,” says Dalmar. “I spy in my free time. You interested? The pay is good.”
There is only one answer that Amran, aspiring covert agent, can give. “That sounds amazing. If it’s true,” she adds, with what she hopes is a mildly flirtatious twinkle. “Can we talk about it more tomorrow? I’ve got a work call to get to.”
* * *
After four hours of steady work, Maryam has a general understanding of the way the Independentista data and communications systems are set up. She doesn’t see any obvious way for them to transmit outside of the trade-agreement pipeline, but then it wouldn’t be obvious, would it? Going any further will mean crossing a line: she hasn’t hacked into anything yet per se, and she decides to take a break before she does. She’s supposed to be a tourist; she had better act like one for a while instead of sitting shut up in her room. If she can find one of these mysterious repositories of data, she should be able to trace it from that end. Knowing what she’s looking for will make the hacking part easier. Besides, the room is starting to give her a queasy feeling that makes her want to scope out escape routes.
It’s only five short, square blocks to the border with OaxacaLibreYSoberana, which would be more comforting if Maryam could imagine outrunning anyone who came banging on her hotel room door. She dawdles on the border, scanning for illicit feeds, but finds nothing. No children handing out paper cards on the corner, either. She gives herself a few more minutes to tap into Information and make sure there have been no urgent messages or world-shaking events. Blinking away the interface, she realizes that she has been standing alone on a street corner, staring at nothing while people walk past. Anyone watching her would know she was logging on and be able to guess that she is getting her fix and therefore staying in Independentistas territory. Feeling exposed, she turns back into the Territorio de la Justicia. Surely, lots of tourists feel compelled to check in with Information even while they’re on vacation from it? Indeed, as she strolls back, she notices a few cafés on that block with prominent SE CONECTA AQUÍ signs in their windows and increasingly impressive antennas on their roofs.
As she strolls through the city, casually aiming herself at the closest point of the NuevoPRI border, Maryam sees more evidence of the tourist economy. There are restaurants offering canela panqueques and mole lattes dusted with açai, art galleries featuring impressionistic paintings of Oaxacan streets and market scenes. She finds a stall selling broadcloth headbands with a capilliphelic coating that makes it easy to capture hair under them. Remembering the bright outfits at the sanitorium in Dhaka, she buys one with rainbow stripes as an alternative to her usual black headscarves. Then Maryam sits down at one of the outdoor tables of a café and has a tamal con rajas y chapulines and a tejate while she wonders how she’s going to find any ex-Information staffers that might be hanging around.
What would they be doing if they were here? Hiding out, she supposes. Studying the local intel infrastructure, like she is. Maybe making forays into Information infrastructure, which would mean hanging out along the border, maybe in some of those cafés she saw, or renting a room close enough and buying an antenna. Since she has no idea how to distinguish them from tourists and Information-hungry locals, she goes back to the hotel and gets to work.
After another few hours of excavation on the local processes, Maryam takes a quick evening stroll to find some dinner. Taking a recommendation from a tourist compilation she downloaded before she came, she finds a gorgeous flor de calabaza soup in a cute basement restaurant two blocks away. Lingering over her espresso after dinner, she worries about how predictable it is to go to the border and stare into Information every time she leaves the hotel. It would be even more suspicious to pretend she doesn’t care about messages, social capital funds, plaza conversations, and news, though.
It’s comforting how familiar the walk to the border feels already. In the warmth of early evening, Maryam can see individuals, couples, and small groups leaning against walls and standing under streetlights, their eyes flickering with content or updates. It’s an eerie cross between streetwalking and drug addiction, and Maryam does a quick download and starts reading as she walks back to the hotel. There’s a sweet but brief message from Núria, and something bland and unimportant from Nejime that Maryam interprets as a request to check in, so she doubles back to send an equally anodyne answer. By the time she gets back to her hotel, she feels exhausted, even though it’s at least three hours before her usual bedtime.
The climate control on the bed is antiquated and there’s a small sign on the wall asking guests to refrain from using it unless absolutely necessary because of limited electrical power. Maryam is tempted to sleep with the window open for the cool courtyard air but feels too nervous. Even
after she’s tucked in and sweltering, she finds herself glaring anxiously at the door, wondering if shadowy ex-Information workers have been tracking her searches and are coming for her in the night.
CHAPTER 11
Maryam wakes refreshed, if sweaty. In the light of morning, her fears seem silly. She gets a breakfast of chapulines rancheros in the hotel dining room and goes back into the work eagerly: it is fascinating to look at such a stripped-down system. She is building a model of the nodal connections as she goes; it looks something like a small airport, with a few crisscrossing runways and smaller tracks for baggage vehicles. She can imagine a similar model of even a tiny corner of Information—say, her centenal in La Habana—looking like a star map.
One difference that leaps out at her is the bottleneck where this system connects to the outside world: there is a single, though robust, channel to Information. It is not controlled by a censor, human or algorithmic: Information only sends across what the Independentistas pay for. And yet they still channel everything through the government before distributing it; people can see the Information data only through the government portal. Maryam spends some time in that channel checking to see if additional data is being sent clandestinely, and also observes the slimmer return channel, over which the Independentistas send back their local news program and demographic data as agreed. For kicks, Maryam takes a look at the local news program. She sometimes streams local compilers in La Habana to learn more about her new city and keep up with crime, weather, and restaurant openings; compared to those, the Independentista programming is painfully amateurish. She wonders how many people watch it, but no numbers are available, and she doesn’t want to waste her hacking time on it. Instead, she starts looking for other gateways into the system.
All the thinking about crossing points has reminded her of the border that Núria spent ten days patrolling, and when she’s ready for a break she decides to go check it out. Maybe she can find some hint of the clandestine channels there. Maryam considers calling the taxista to take her there, but after looking at a map—available through a projection port in her room—she decides it’s close enough to walk.