by Malka Older
“Assuming that I am right, and Information collapses within the next thirty-six hours, a smooth transition is greatly preferable from the perspective of our investments.” Anton’s smile widens. “I was particularly pleased to see you out of all the possible Information agents, because I hope we can do business together in the future.”
Mishima stands up. “I doubt it. And if you’re wrong and Information doesn’t fall, you’ll all be arrested for the selling of unvalidated data.”
“Well, that’s the other reason I was glad it was you who came.” Anton is still genial. “I’m sure the safety of the most famous Information staffer will buy my safe conduct to Russia. But I doubt that will be necessary. We’ll be in business by this time tomorrow, and your presence will go a long way toward legitimizing our clients.”
Mishima turns to the door. The security guards loom on either side of it, watching her.
“You should sit down,” Anton says behind her. “We will be here for a while yet.” She hears him slurp on his still-hot coffee.
The door bursts open. The coffee splutters from Anton’s mouth as Nakia strides in, holding a large flamethrower, which she swings on the guard to her right. Mishima pulls her hunting knife and covers the other guard. “Nice,” she says to Nakia.
“Hey.” Anton stops patting at his coffee-spattered shirt to stare at Nakia. “I know you, too. You’re that woman from New York!”
“You’re a genius,” Nakia says as they back out the door.
“No, really,” Anton says, pushing past the guards to follow them, although he stays beyond flame range. “You two, together? That would be—” The gushing noise of the flamethrower covers his word choice; Mishima suspects dynamite. “Listen,” Anton yells from the singed corridor as they turn to run, “if you decide to get into the business, call me!”
“Who are these people?” Nakia mutters to Mishima.
“I’ll tell you later. Where are you parked?”
“Roof.” She pulls open a door to an external staircase. “Over here.”
The crow is waiting on the rooftop. Mishima launches as soon as they are both within the vehicle, jostling Nakia against the wall as she accelerates. As they pull into the dark sky, an elongated shape launches itself upward from beside the building.
“What is that?” Nakia asks, scrambling into one of the pilot’s chairs in the nose and strapping herself in.
“Too long and skinny for a tsubame,” Mishima says, dropping altitude and swinging around south toward the closest point of micro-democratic airspace. “But it’s got to be something similar.”
“It’s fast!” Nakia says as the smaller vehicle swoops after them. “And it’s shooting at us!” A dark blob flies toward them, and Mishima banks hard, then accelerates.
“It’s a simple grenade,” Mishima says as it falls harmlessly past them. “Do you think they’ll follow us into Information territory?” They are almost past Saaremaa territory already; if it were light out, they would be able to see the edge of the island below them.
“Maybe not,” Nakia says doubtfully. “I thought that guy was your biggest fan.”
“I’m guessing he’s not the final word on security,” Mishima answers, thinking of Rajiv clutching his ribcage. She suddenly swings the crow around to face its assailant and lets off a gout of flame from the crow’s weapon. Their pursuer dodges away, and Mishima continues her sweeping turn and accelerates again.
Like a light switching on, Information is suddenly there. “Lastochka,” Nakia reads from her vision. “A Russian tsubame knock-off.”
“Anything useful?” Mishima asks, corkscrewing again as a grenade plummets past them.
“Just what you’ve already discovered,” Nakia answers, skimming. “Faster than a crow but not as nimble.”
Mishima sets off an SOS signal, then sends the crow into a loop with a sickening plunge at its height.
“There!” Nakia says, pointing at the coastline rushing toward them.
There is a thunk and both of them freeze, but the grenade bounces off and explodes between them and the waves.
“Still coming?” Mishima asks as they tear over the shore.
“It’s slowing down,” Nakia says. Mishima decelerates and takes her eyes off the forward view, and they both watch as the Lastochka veers back toward Saaremaa.
“Phew!” Nakia slumps back in her chair. “You were right, Mishima; this does put my troubles into perspective.”
Mishima grunts an acknowledgement. “What did you do to Domaine?” she asks, keeping an eye in the rearview vid.
“Oh, he got me the flamethrower, but he didn’t think you’d appreciate it if he came along.”
“Astute.” Mishima snorts. “How did it go with him?”
Nakia gets up to get two glasses of water. “He talked himself into knots, trying to explain to me why taking down Information is more important than respecting my life, and then when he couldn’t defend it anymore even to himself, he broke down and groveled.”
“I thought you were going for vengeance,” Mishima notes mildly. She’s trying to decide whether to aim for Doha or Saigon or New York.
“I did too. But I’d prefer to get it from AmericaTheGreat or our esteemed employer.”
“Looks like you’re not the only one.” Mishima projects the navigation screen between them so Nakia can see it blink on and off. “Locators are down, the Information intranet is inaccessible, and voting starts in seven hours. Information is under attack.”
* * *
PhilipMorris chose a construction site for the Rome terminus of the Rome-Cairo mantle tunnel on the outskirts of the city in hopes of avoiding any troublesome historical artifacts during the excavation. Roz is annoyed when they disembark to see another visiting delegation. She recognizes a staffer from Veena Rasmussen’s organization, presumably looking for dirt for the next lawsuit, or maybe on court-ordered mediation.
“Maybe Veena’s people will keep them busy enough that I won’t have to sit through a fake meeting. Come on.”
Roz knows exactly where the cable is anchored; she remembers standing there for hours during the ceremony when they turned on the scanners. They navigate around the various free-standing pop-up offices.
“Okay, here.” A gilded spike sticks up from the ground, running a constant projection of crowded numbers in a cube above its rounded head.
Djukic takes a look at the projection and snorts; clearly, the data isn’t as interesting or sophisticated as it pretends to be. “Now what?” she asks Roz.
Roz had figured that Djukic could take it from here. “Uh, can’t you just … dig or something?”
Djukic sighs and drops into a crouch by the spike. “We could have brought a spade,” she grumbles, but she’s already scrabbling in the dirt. Roz drops down to join her, but Djukic shakes her head. “Keep a lookout. Good thing it’s cold and I was wearing gloves anyway.”
The surface is hard with cold but not frozen, and the dirt isn’t packed. It only takes a minute or two for Djukic to clear half a foot of space on the southeast side of the spike, where the cable feeds into it. “Hang on,” she says, and lies down, getting her head close to the cable.
Veena’s group arrived at the compound forty-three minutes ago, so there’s a good chance the meeting is still going on. The engineering group seems to be in their offices, which makes her a little nervous, since they could come out of them at any moment and three of their shelter doorways look out directly on the spike, but hopefully they’re all deep in calculations.
“Yep,” Djukic says. “They bundled comms in here. I see at least … seven different strands.”
“Can you attach these readers?” Roz asks, squatting to pass them to her. She’s annoyed with herself: she only brought six. She stands again and goes back to looking around. Her annotations stutter and disappear. Roz blinks, and blinks again.
Djukic, climbing to her feet, notices too. “Are you guys doing maintenance today or something? I suppose it must be easier on Preelection Day with fewer
pop-ups.”
Roz starts toward the crow. Annotations flicker back on. “Ah,” Djukic says. “Just a glitch, I guess.” They go off again. “Happens to all of us.”
No, it doesn’t, not to Information, not in fricking PhilipMorris Rome. The digital environment has changed. Pop-ups are blossoming around them in the relative quiet of Preelection Day. One is asking them to connect to AltraRoma. What is that, a virtual reality site? Another is streaming headlines like ticker tape. Another, under the rubric Opposition Research, is promising The Best Information Not on Information. Roz starts to feel dizzy. “Come on,” she says. “We need to get back.” She remembers that moment during the null-states debate. If everything’s really falling apart this time, she wants to be home with her husband and her obstetrician.
On the way to the lot where the crow is moored, Roz spots Veena Rasmussen and two of her staffers clustered outside the management office.
Veena sees her too. “Roz!” she calls. “Did something happen?” She doesn’t sound scared but slightly shrill, braced for catastrophe. Roz wonders what dire event she’s reliving. The blackout during the last election? The Anarchy attack? One of the multiple failed attempts on the Policy1st headquarters during the four years she worked there?
“I don’t know.” Roz bends her trajectory so she can lurch close enough to Veena to preclude anyone else from hearing. “Check the scanner cable, the one they put in to test the proposed route. There’s more on it than there should be. I’ve only just found out myself,” she adds over her shoulder as she makes for the crow.
CHAPTER 24
“Where are we going?” Mishima asks. “Should I drop you back in New York?”
“I’m in no hurry,” Nakia says. “This is the best vacation I’ve had in years.”
“So … Doha?” Mishima wants to be in the middle of whatever this is, and in the current constellation of Information power, Doha is the center of gravity.
“Sure, Doha,” Nakia says without enthusiasm. “What’s going on with you and Ken?”
Normally, Mishima doesn’t talk to anyone about her love life. She’s never enjoyed it, and becoming famous enough to have her relationship dissected in public by so-called experts without her consent or participation has made it less appealing. But even though she and Nakia have never been especially close, she finds herself narrating the fight, point by point.
“And where is he now?” Nakia asks. They are sprawled on the lower bunkbed, munching on energy chews.
“Saigon, I guess,” Mishima says. “Locators are off. No, wait! He’s in Copenhagen for his Policy1st job orientation. Probably.”
“Then why are we going to Doha?”
“I have to report in to Nejime,” Mishima mumbles.
“Really. What do you have to tell her?”
“That Exformation and their Russian backers are prepared to take over the second Information goes down.”
“And how are they going to take it down?”
“I don’t know, but”—waving her hand at the wavering navigational projection in front of them—“it looks like they already started.”
“Are you still mad?”
“Yes. Oh, you mean at Ken. No, not really. Annoyed, maybe. But I miss him.” Mishima rolls over to hide her head in her arm. “I don’t want to lose him,” she reports from that darkness.
“Then you should go talk to him. Besides”—with a sudden inspiration—“you said Domaine warned you about governments? Maybe visiting Policy1st will shed some light on the plot.”
“Policy1st doesn’t have a military,” Mishima argues, but she’s already setting the course for Copenhagen with her eyes closed.
* * *
Ken’s first meeting as Deputy Liaison for Semi-Autonomous Sub-Governments is going well. His future boss, the Senior Liaison for etc., hasn’t been confirmed yet, so he’s meeting directly with Vera Kubugli and six other senior directors. There’s a large projection in one corner of the room counting down to the start of voting, and a smaller but more distracting area below it that cycles through feeds from Policy1st centenals around the world. It helps to keep the upper echelon in their ultra-modern offices connected with the real people, he imagines.
The discussion is thoughtful and evidence-based, as he would expect from Policy1st, and Ken is able to make a point about the identity function that everyone nods about, so he’s feeling pleased with himself.
Then Vera jolts up from her chair. “Sorry,” she says. “Emergency call.” She steps toward the window and everyone else in the room politely looks away, but a moment later she’s coming back and opening the projection. “You all can hear this,” she says.
It’s Veena Rasmussen on the other end, looking windblown and harried in some bare-earth area. “The mantle-tunnel construction,” she begins, and Ken immediately grows skeptical: this has been her bugbear for years, and while he’s not in favor of mantle tunnels, he’s long found her repetitive if not obsessed. “It’s being used as a cover for illicit intra-governmental communications.”
That’s a new angle.
Veena seems breathless with the excitement of it. “I saw it. I have vid.” She tosses through a file that opens up into a separate projection, a bundle of wires and amazed experts’ faces. “This is what we needed! We can stop the construction of this environmental travesty right now.”
“That’s marvelous,” Vera says, and Ken is almost sure she’s even more fed up with Veena’s single issue than he is, “but it’s too late to affect the election. It’s Preelection Day; there’s no way you’ll be able to get intel about other governments past the no-campaigning rule.”
Veena starts to laugh. She sounds unhinged, and Ken sees uncomfortable glances being exchanged among the senior directors. “I guess you haven’t been outside,” Veena says. “But I think we can find a way to get the data out into the world.”
* * *
Maryam stumbles out of the Paris Hub while the staff are still yelling in the corridors, and does her own diagnostic on a park bench. Information is back up, but not all of it. Locators are down, pop-ups are behaving strangely, and annotations keep blinking off and on. Something happened during those moments while it was down, some shift. The rules have changed. What was it Taskeen said? That next time, she would program in regular upheavals? Maryam shudders.
All she wants right now is to be home with Núria. It’s a familiar feeling, deep-rooted even as she dismisses it as irrational. She felt the same hollow in her chest when she was eight and fighting broke out between two rival militias while she was in school. She could talk to her parents and know that they were safe, she wasn’t in any danger where she was, and it was obvious even to an eight-year-old that traveling the streets would be worse. And yet, the urge to be physically in their presence was so strong that a teacher had to hold her back from running home. Now all she wants is to be home and to be with Núria. But Núria’s a soldier—if the world’s going crazy, she probably isn’t home either. And Maryam has no idea where she is, because locators are down.
She can’t face going back into the Paris Hub, where sooner or later she would have to talk to Nougaz. She’s not going to sit this one out on a park bench, either. Maryam hails the next public transportation crow she sees. It is crowded and algorithmically confused, and it takes her four hours to get to the airport, but once she does she finds that most flights are in service, and she’s able to get a ticket for Doha.
* * *
When Mishima and Nakia get to Copenhagen, locators are still down, and Mishima points the crow to the roof of the Policy1st headquarters. It reminds her of the aftermath of the Kanto earthquake, just after she and Ken met. With Information down, Ken sought her out on the roof of the Tokyo Hub.
The Policy1st headquarters is much swankier than the squat, practical Tokyo Hub. The angled roof sports a small turbine and is plastered with enough solar panels to make the offices energy-positive, and the interior is expansive and airy, constructed from naturally fallen wood and acce
nted with sea glass. Mishima is listed as Ken’s partner, which gets her past the receptionist, but he refuses to contact Ken until his meeting is over. Fortunately, Mishima knows exactly where he will go next.
And so, when Ken emerges from his meeting, he finds her sitting by the crèche, watching Sayaka play among the dozens of Policy1st toddlers. He watches her back for a few seconds; then, though he hasn’t moved and is still several meters away, she turns and sees him. The great spy in action.
“Hey,” he says cautiously as he approaches.
“Hi,” Mishima answers, and then, to say something: “It’s a great crèche. Look how much fun she’s having with the other kids! Maybe we should move here instead of you working remotely.”
“I quit.” Ken hopes he sounds as confident and matter-of-fact in his decision as Mishima would.
She whirls on him, everything else forgotten. “Why? What happened?”
Ken immediately loses his equanimity. He’s been desperate to talk this through with her since it happened. “They hired Suzuki as Chief Liaison for Semi-Autonomous Sub-Governments.”
Mishima concentrates for a moment on not showing any expression. Suzuki is, in her non-expert opinion, a sociopath: charming, successful, likable, and ruthless. But Ken has a long, close history with him, laced with gratitude and betrayal, and she’s never wanted to tell him something he’s not ready to hear. “You would have been working under him again,” she says as neutrally as she can.
“Suzuki helped me out when I had nothing, but he’s always going to see me that way, as the kid he helped out, and never on my own merits. And he’s never going to let go of his position, so there would have been no way for me to advance.”
“I’m sure Vera would move you to a different department if you talked to her.”
“Yeah, but then it would look like I was rejecting Suzuki, and I can’t do that after all he’s done for me. Besides, the election is over.” Ken gives a half-shrug. “Working for Policy1st in”—he almost said peacetime—“normal times has never been as exciting.”
“Sounds like the right decision.” The silence grows again. Mishima is tugged by the temptation to let the tacit reconciliation stand. “I’m sorry,” she says at last. “I…” She has to struggle again to be more specific. “I should have talked to you about it.”