by Ken MacLeod
What a laugh she gave. She frightened herself. One of the scampering children playing around them stopped, put his thumb in his mouth and ran away.
“We ran a benign state capitalism, nothing more,” she went on. “In your case, my friend, it was not even that. God, I feel disgusted with myself that we did it, that we ever allowed ourselves to be compradors for Reid’s goddamn private gulags.”
Nok-Yung stared at the sky for a moment. T don’t know what to say, Myra,” he said at last. “Your regret over the Mutual Protection camps is… well taken. But about the other matters—you must surely know that none of what you have been talking about, the USSR and so on, is socialism as we understand it, and as you understood it. So stop confusing the issue.”
“Oh, I’m well aware that you are different. That you may well be the genuine article: Marx and Engels, Proprietors. And you know what? I don’t care. I don’t want it, for myself or for anyone.”
“Why not?” Nok-Yung sounded more puzzled than offended.
Myra pointed across the river to the insectile shape of a fighting-machine, patrolling the water’s edge with heron-like steps.
“Because of those damn things,” she said. “And the calculating-machines.”
“What!” Nok-Yung’s eyes creased up in amusement. “Luddism is not your true ideology, Myra. I cannot believe this. These machines are one of the most marvellous achievements of the Sheenisov—a whole alternative nanotechnology, worked out quite independently of the West. You know how the machines scale down, all the way to the molecular scale, and are all mechanical and chemical and optical, with no need for electronic interfaces? That’s their—our—secret weapon, an open secret. A computer system that the enemy cannot penetrate, but that everyone can understand and access. I’ve just begun to use it, and I tell you, it has the most intuitive interface I’ve ever come across. The capitalists would kill for it. Or rather, they would kill to be able to monopolise it. But it’s free, so they can’t.”
“I know about your strange machines,” Myra said. “The CIA told me all about them.” She tapped her temple, smiling ironically. “ ‘I have detailed files.’ ”
Nok-Yung caught the allusion. “It is not The Terminator, you know! Not—what was it in the films?—Skynet. It is not… inimical.”
“Not now, perhaps. But what will it do, when it—or you-have covered the world, like a banyan tree?”
Nok-Yung spat a puff of air and smoke. “More Luddism! The machines will form a benign human environment, a second nature, within which human nature can flourish, truly, for the first time.” He leaned forward, speaking confidentially. “Let me tell you what we have done, something that no other system would have dared to do. We have nanofac-tured a virally distributed, genetically fixable version of the anti-ageing treatment. It spreads before our migrations like a benign plague. You may be already infected, yourself. A gift.”
“God, that is so irresponsible!” Myra jolted rigid. “Viruses mutate, dammit, in case you hadn’t heard!”
Nok-Yung made a planing motion with his hand. “Not this one. It has self-repair built in. It has tested stable through a million virtual generations.”
“ Virtual generations, yes! Man, you did enough design work in the camp to know what that’s worth in the real world!”
“Different system, different design philosophy,” he said, with infuriating complacency. “Our testing kits are themselves part of the real world. It’s like the difference between a working scale model and a simulation. There is simply no comparison. And the computing resources are vast, vaster even than anything the spacers have yet built.”
Myra felt her gaze sinking into the bottomless pool of his self-confidence. It was truly terrifying; it was, she realised, what she most feared for herself—to be so sure. To be absolutely certain that she was right would, as far as she was concerned, be the end of her. Doubt was her only hope, her comfort and companion since childhood, her scepticism her sole security.
Shin Se-Ha returned and sat down, affecting not to notice their frozen moment of mutual incomprehension. He looked at Myra, gravely, and shook his head.
“No deal, I’m afraid.”
Myra could scarcely believe it.
“Why ever not? The alternative is to fight your way through Kazakhstan! All you have to do instead is not fight us! What more can you ask of us?”
Se-Ha shook his head sadly. “It is not that, Myra,” he said. “It is not aggression, or animosity. It is simply the imperative of our mode of production. It will be global or it will be nothing, as your Trotsky always said. We have to keep running, or fall over, until we meet ourselves, on the other side of the world.”
He saw this wasn’t getting anywhere with her. “More concretely,” he continued, “we can’t have… unassimilated areas within the Union. It would be too much of an opportunity for our enemies. And we can’t stop for long, because that would force us to engage in internal class struggle, particularly with the small-property owners, which we do not want.” He smiled. To put it mildly! We have so far been able to avoid the whole dictatorship of the proletariat scenario by simply carrying the remaining small and large businesses along with us. The machine-based common-property economy expands, and they expand in its interstices. They can live like nits in our hair, as long as we are running. If we stopped, the itch would be intolerable. We would have to… scratch.”
“Oh, come on,” said Myra. “You can run a mixed economy indefinitely. We’ve been doing it in Kapitsa for years.”
“A mixture of state capitalism and private, yes,” said Nok-Yung, “as you’ve just reminded me. A mixture of a real non-commodity economy and a market is much more unstable. Conflicts arise very rapidly—if they’re both confined to the same economic space.”
An unstable system, that had to expand at just the right speed to stop itself falling over; not too slow, or too fast… there were plenty of natural and artificial and social analogies to that. Myra almost giggled at the thought of what would happen to them if Kazakhstan just surrendered, if the Sheenisov suddenly found themselves pushing at an open door and fell flat on their collective faces.
But that wasn’t an option. She looked around, checking that her guards were still bored and watchful, then back at the two new recruits to the Sheenisov. The absurdity of the situation struck her—she was doing diplomacy by just talking to two guys on the street. For all she knew they could be as deluded as UFO contactees, and not really ambassadors from an alien intelligence at all. Again she felt the urge to giggle—it was just another silly idea; she was feeling light-headed, flighty, as though her problem had been solved. She couldn’t see any solution. She was in deeper trouble than ever, but still she felt relieved.
“There is a certain urgency to it,” Se-Ha was saying, a litde apologetically. “Green factions are experimenting with plague vectors. The spacer groups, the Outwarders, have a radically post-human vision. Between them, they threaten humanity with extinction. Our advance is in essence defensive…”
She looked sharply at him. “Tell me, Se-Ha,” she said, “just who it was you consulted, back there.”
He looked uncomfortable. “It was… a distributed decision. A consensus.”
“Bullshit!” she snapped. “Don’t give me that. I didn’t see a vote being taken in the streets around here. Did you? So there must be a leadership somewhere, a council. I want to talk to it.”
“You are talking to it,” he said, “when you talk to us. To the extent that it exists. The policy parameters have indeed been set democratically, but the implementation, the… administrative decisions, are made…” He chewed his lower lip. “It’s hard to say,” he finished lamely.
“Let me guess,” said Myra, standing up. “Expert system. AI.”
Se-Ha looked up at her, eyes dark and blank under his thin black brows. “That is possible, yes.”
Myra straightened and sighed. She was convinced, paranoically perhaps, that the mad preacher Jordan had been right: the General
, the Plan, was at the bottom of all this, that it had implemented itself on the Sheenisov’s machine ecology and was in the process of taking over the world. With the best intentions, no doubt.
“God, yes, you’re right,” she said. “It’s you or the Outwarders. Both sides are like the fucking Borg. “You will be assimilated’—isn’t that what you’re telling me?”
Nok-Yung shrugged. “It’s not something sinister. We all live in the world machine. Why not live in a world machine that is on our side?”
Myra had to smile. “You want me to imagine the future,” she said, “as socialism with a human face—for ever?”
“Yes!” they both said, pleased that she’d got the point at last.
It really would be hard to end this conversation politely, but she would try.
“I’ll take your message back to President Suleimanyov,” she said. “No doubt you will await our response.”
Se-Ha and Nok-Yung stood up and shook her hand gravely.
“Goodbye,” she said.
“Goodbye,” they both said.
Se-Ha smiled mischievously. “I hope I see you again.”
They’d rented the plane, an executive jet that had seen better days, in Almaty. Just as well; Myra could not have borne to displace any passengers on the commercial flights out of Semipalatinsk, standing room only and a strict baggage allowance.
As soon as they were beyond Sheenisov airspace—and Sheenisov jamming—Parvus made a priority over-ride and poked his virtual head over the back of the seat in front of her.
“Sorry about this, Myra,” the AI murmured. “Urgent messages.”
“Patch ’em through,” she said.
The message queue consisted of calls from Suleimanyov, Valentina Kozlova and someone with an anonymous code identifier. She worked through them one by one.
As soon as she blinked on the President’s identifier, he was through, live from his office. Various aides and ministers hovered in the periphery of the shot.
“Hello,” he said. “Results?”
Myra grimaced. “They’re adamant that they won’t accept it I was as surprised as you are. In fact, I was shocked. I have a suspicion that the secret of their military and economic co-ordination is a military AI, and that it is… calling the shots.”
Chingiz took this with unexpected aplomb.
“It was worth trying,” he said. He waved his hand, downwards. “However, the Sheenisov are no longer our most immediate problem.”
“What’s happened?”
He smiled wryly. “As we expected. It’s all gone public now—everyone knows about the nukes. Our generous offers to the United States, and to other countries, have been referred up to the UN—and referred back to the Security Council, for immediate action. We are to turn over our nuclear weapons to forces under UN authority within twenty-four hours—twenty-three and a half, now—or face aerial and space attack. Specifically, on Kapitsa, which they have rightly identified as the focus of the problem. After Kapitsa, Almaty.”
Myra thought for a moment that the virtual view had gone monochrome, and that the plane had turned over. Then everything was normal again.
“If they carry through their threat against Kapitsa—well, I would hope for air support.” She smiled wanly. “But please, Chingiz. Don’t let them ruin Almaty.”
“I have no intention of letting them do that,” he said. “I suggest you return to Kapitsa. You have problems of your own. Evacuate the town, if you can. Let them hit an empty shell. We’ll send transport and cavalry.”
“Cavalry?”
“For… internal security. The stand-off around the government building is very tense.” He glanced away. “Your own Defence Minister is trying to get through to you. She can explain the situation better than I can. Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye, Chingiz.”
Before taking the next call, Myra turned to Nurup and Mustafa.
“We’re diverting to Kapitsa,” she said. “I may be going into a very volatile situation. Street violence, at least. And possible bombing, maybe up to nuclear level. This is not what I hired you for. We can drop you off at Karaganda first, if you wish.”
The two mujahedin looked deeply offended.
“Our job is to keep you safe until you return to Almaty, or until you tell us to go,” Nurup said.
“OK,” she said. “I’m telling you to go.”
She reached for the intercom toggle. Mustafa was out of his seat in an instant, and placed a hand across the switch. His expression and tone were apologetic. “We stay,” he said. “It’s God’s will.”
And a matter of honour too, she guessed.
“Kapitsa it is, then,” she said.
The two men beamed at her as though she had done them a favour. Perhaps she had; they probably believed she’d just issued them two free passes to heaven. There were times when she envied the devout.
As the plane banked around she took the call from Valentina. This one was v-mail, recorded in one of the offices in the government building. Behind Valentina, men with Kalashnikovs lurked at windows. Bureaucrats turned desks into makeshift barricades. Somebody was operating a byte-shredder, wiping computer memories, setting up a blizzard of interference.
“Hi, Myra, hope this gets through. Jesus, did you hear that the nuke thing’s all over the media? We’ve got news collectors—warm bodies as well as remotes—coming in all the time, and the demonstrators are acting up for them so they can watch themselves being heroic on CNN. Fucking classic media feedback howl. The nuke thing has really freaked a lot of them out—in all the factions, the lefty headbangers and the pro-UN types and the fucking spa-cists. Not to mention our very own patriots. Our agents in the crowd—hell, even the reporters—are picking up talk about storming the building. We want you back as soon as you can; we’ll have a militia driver on standby at the airport.”
The message was time-stamped at 1.35 p.m., and it was now 2.50. Myra blinked up a split-screen of television news channels while taking the third call. The seatbelt light came on; the aeroplane was beginning its descent to Kapitsa. Thank God for ultra-precise radio tuning—Myra could remember when you couldn’t even take a call in level flight. The pilot’s voice was raised slightly as he argued with air-traffic control for precedence, throwing diplomatic weight and Kazakh curses about equally. Myra looked out of the window. More aircraft than usual—hastily hired jets, she guessed—were parked beside the runways. The media circus was in town.
Her anonymous caller flickered into view.
“Jason!”
The CIA agent gave her a tense smile, but warm around the eyes. “Hello, Myra. Good to see you. Wow, you look amazing. Just in time for your global stardom, huh?”
“Hah!”
“Almost as much excitement as the coup. Anyway… I’m here to tell you that we’ve got somewhere with the investigation.”
Undercarriage down, thump.
“What—oh, Georgi’s—”
“Yup. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Myra, but—shit, we got this out of the black labs, it’s bleeding-edge stuff. We did an autopsy on a goddamn cell sample—don’t ask how we got it.”
A bump, a rocking forward, another bump, and the incline of deceleration.
“The point is, Myra, we found traces of a very specific, very subtle bit of nanotech. It’s not exactly a poison, that’s the clever thing. It builds up into a little machine, then disintegrates when it’s done its job. We found a few gear trains, but that was enough.”
The aircraft came to a halt and the seatbelt light went off. The door banged open and the steps angled down. Myra stood up and shuffled forward, behind Nurup and in front of Mustafa, still talking and listening. She waved absently to the pilot, left him a handful of gold coins as a bonus. She was thinking ahead.
“Enough for what?”
“Enough to identify it. It’s a spacer assassination weapon. A heart-stopper.”
A heart-stopper. Yes. It was that.
She blinked away the float
ing image of Jason to concentrate on her surroundings. No signs of actual incoming fire. She followed Nurup towards the terminal building, about a hundred metres away. Jason’s voice in her head continued.
“So there’s no doubt any more—it was murder. Now, there’s no proof the space movement had a hand in it, beyond supplying the weapon, but the circumstantial evidence is kind of strong.”
You could say that,” Myra agreed, making a conscious effort to unclench her jaw. Having her suspicions confirmed after all this time of indulging then dismissing them was a shock.
Fucking heart attack…
“They don’t exactly throw that sort of kit around,” she mused aloud. “Too easy to reverse-engineer, for one thing. But why would they do it?”
Through the long corridor, letting Nurup and Mustafa do the lookout. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the adjacent, outbound corridor, packed from end to end with a slow-moving queue.
“Well, the obvious motive would’ve been to stop him making the offer to the Kazakhstanis.”
“And how do you know about that?”
“Uh, that’s classified.”
Myra had to laugh.
“But how would they have known about it, I mean before—?”
“You tell me.”
They’d reached the concourse. It wasn’t quite as crowded or frantic as she’d begun to expect; most of those intent on leaving must have already left, or at least be in the exit queue. Much to her relief, no newshounds or reporters had spotted her yet, though she identified one or two by their flak-jackets and communications clutter and vaguely familiar faces. Scanning the crowd, she saw a man in the uniform of the Workers’ Militia, who caught her eye, saluted and started pushing towards her.