by Malka Older
“Declare war, say it was democratically justified, and use illicit weapons and physical force to draw the region into a self-destructive conflict?” Ken suggests.
“I suppose,” the profesora agrees with a desultory wave of her hand. “But it seems so unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?”
“Listen, I’ll tell you what I told that other young lady.” Ken’s not sure whether to be thrilled or annoyed that he’s getting exactly the same data as a Liberty spy/researcher. “For most of the people here, it doesn’t matter. If Liberty wants to win this centenal from Heritage, for example, they’ll have to do it using well-respected members of the community. The people who have a role now. And, in gratitude, Liberty will allow them to keep that role. Oh, there may be some shuffling, but these are petty issues. There’s no need for war. And in the end very little would change.”
Ken bites his lip so as not to point out that electing Policy1st—or Economix, or even YouGov—would change a great deal. “What about the Supermajority?” he asks instead.
“If we were to change governments, or if Heritage were to lose the Supermajority, then there would be some changes,” the profesora admits. “There are benefits to being in a centenal belonging to the Supermajority, as I’m sure you’ve realized,” in your quixotic quest to defeat the incumbent, Ken finishes for her in his head.
“So, when the Supermajority is at risk, does it lead to tension as elites try to predict who will win?”
“Do you believe the Supermajority could change?” she asks, looking at him with curiosity, as though the answer would tell her more about him than about the status of the election.
Ken pulls out the latest tailor-made globe. “As you can see—” He motions, but she waves it away rather rudely.
“Come, come, I’m asking you. Not your Information falsification team.”
A month ago, Ken would have bristled, made some wild claim about the high truth standards of Policy1st staff, but he doesn’t feel quite as confident in that anymore. Even if he did, he’s learned that nobody else is going to believe it. He makes himself smile. “I made this one myself, so any errors are mine,” he manages, feeling suave. She only smirks, and he gives in to irritation. “Look, you don’t have to believe it, but this is what we’re seeing: Heritage stock is dropping in megalopolises and other disaster-prone areas because of disappointment over handling of the earthquake. That’s compounded in Japan and the rest of East Asia by repercussions around the mantle-tunnel decision.”
After the earthquake, the plan to make the Tokyo-Taipei route the first tunnel was quickly jettisoned, and the talk is now Paris-Dakar. Half of East Asia is pissed off that they lost the tunnel, and the rest are using the debacle to claim it was too dangerous in the first place. “The other corporates, smelling blood, have taken out their knives. Have you seen this one?” He extinguishes the globe projection and throws up an ad that the Policy1st office in Bosnia recorded and sent around.
The voiceover and subtitles say, “Who do you trust to protect you when things fall apart?” over a video clip of a Heritage worker in an elaborate emergency vest, drinking a cup of coffee while a line of shivering citizens is visible through the plate glass doors. The vid cuts to a Heritage warehouse filled with tents, a reminder of the accusations that they were slow to distribute goods that they had stockpiled nearby.
When Ken watches this, he always feels a twinge of sympathy for the poor sap in the emergency vest. He himself drank plenty of coffee while he was working on the response. On the other hand, if Heritage did hold blankets they were ready to distribute until new vid feeds could be set up, like people are saying, he hopes they get nailed for it.
“Let’s say the Supermajority changes,” the profesora says. She really sounds like an academic now, as though he were a bright but naïve undergraduate and she were using the Socratic method to show him the error of his ways (Ken’s experience of such things is entirely book-, vid-, and game-based, and might be somewhat idealistic). “What difference will it make?”
“If it’s another corporate, probably not much in the grand scheme,” Ken says. “The incentives will shift toward another collection of consumer products. Possibly a very similar collection, depending on which corporate won.”
“But?” the profesora prods. She is still smiling, although he thinks this is where he goes off her tracks.
“But if it’s not a corporate, if it’s a policy-based government like Policy1st, an environmentally focused government like Earth1st, or even an individualist government like YouGov—then things will change.”
“Perhaps,” the profesora says. “But there will still be winners, and there will still be losers.”
Ken tries not to grind his teeth. What did the Liberty spy promise her to convince her she would be one of the winners? “Of course,” he says through as much of a smile as he can manage.
“Our impression,” she goes on, “is that Policy1st is too transparent to have very many winners. But perhaps we are wrong?” She raises her eyebrows, daring him.
Ken wonders if the paper and pen have made her incautious about being recorded, or if she’s accustomed to impunity. Either way, he gives up on this woman. “Oh, on the contrary,” he says. “With transparency there are the most winners of all. Everyone in the centenal gains.”
The profesora bursts out laughing. “Well done, joven,” she says, and actually stands up to slap him on the shoulder. “That woman from Liberty took me out to lunch and offered me, and I quote, ‘Everything Heritage gives you, with a little something extra for your retirement.’” She grimaces. “As if I was anywhere near retiring! Well, tell me more about your policies. Don’t”—admonitory finger raised—“get your hopes up; I meant what I said about there being benefits to being in the Supermajority. I wasn’t talking about personal benefits but for the centenal as a whole. So, I doubt we will change. But why don’t you give it a try?”
CHAPTER 15
Participation in the final debate has been cut down to the top nine, a drastic choice reflecting the compression of the process, and of morale, after the earthquake. Information and the election commission are providing a questionnaire to the next seven and will make their answers public as well, but that requires potential voters to search those answers out and read them. The conventional wisdom is the any government that didn’t make the debate can forget about the Supermajority.
Suzuki is in the greenroom, piling powder on top of his sweat (although video won’t be broadcast, it doesn’t do to leave any detail of appearance uncurated). Policy1st has squeaked in at ninth place, in part because of surprisingly high polling in certain centenals of Jakarta and a late surge in urban areas of Latin America. The biggest factor, however, was the unconsidered comments of Reginald Baste, a representative of YouGov. The popular technogovernment was in fifth place until Baste suggested that the earthquake, though tragic, was causing disproportionate disruption in the election process and that “we should all move on.” The bit of vid was made much of by the other frontrunners, who pointed out that YouGov didn’t have a single centenal in the greater Tokyo area.
Despite this callousness being eminently rational (in fact, as Mishima well knows, a majority of voters agree with the statement “My government should prioritize the needs of its citizens over those of noncitizens”), YouGov fell fast in the polls. More surprising was that the collateral damage included a small but significant fraction of voters from YourStory, which fell from ninth to tenth (The name misrecognition problem, thinks Mishima, wondering which of the governments will rebrand first).
Policy1st is the only issues-based government in the top nine. All the others are corporates, except for 1China, which employs nationalist rhetoric among the huge vestigial population of the PRC and its carefully cultivated colonies, and offers aid and trade support elsewhere. Suzuki normally thrives on public speaking opportunities, his chest expanding with the sound of his measured, reasonable voice and occasional wry quips. But toni
ght, he’s aware that he’s representing more than himself, more even than his government. Oh, it’s extremely doubtful that Policy1st will win the Supermajority—he would say impossible, but elections are rife with unexpected events—but this is a chance to get more people to take issues-based campaigning seriously. If he is boring, his cause will be dismissed as pedantic and elitist; if he is too aggressive, the others will gang up on him; but if he can strike the right tone, they might reach new listeners. Multitasking as usual, he considers the modulations of humor and gravity that are required while making arrangements to relocate Yoriko and her family. They are moving to Amami Ōshima, an island whose sole centenal, while not, unfortunately, Policy1st, has no extradition treaty with Liberty. He’s about to listen to Yoriko’s recording of her brief interrogation one more time, to psych himself up, when he gets an urgent message from Veena Rasmussen. Even with so little time before the debate starts, Suzuki doesn’t hesitate to accept the call. Rasmussen is executive director of Earth1st, a government that spun off from Policy1st in the previous election when they realized there was enough environmental concern out there to merit a separate platform.
* * *
Although Information has stood firm on the audio-only policy for the debates, bootleg videos are always a problem, and one of Mishima’s lower-level duties is to prevent clandestine recordings. She’s gently but firmly removing a handheld from a dignitary in the third row when Suzuki, in the Policy1st opening statement, makes his big announcement.
“I’m thrilled to be able to say,” he says, managing with difficulty to balance on the fine line between pleased and smug, “that, as of tonight, Policy1st will be reuniting with its sister government, Earth1st.”
Mishima manages not to look up from her work, but her mind is tracing a dozen possible branches of causes and consequences as she passes the handheld back to the overdressed old woman, vid deleted and recorder temporarily disabled. She is so edgy that for a moment, she wonders if this could be what Domaine was talking about, if by “friends” he meant Ken, and if “not on your team” meant that Policy1st was not what it seemed to be. Could Ken have somehow gotten illicit information from her? Mishima tries to tamp down the fear of having slipped up, missed a trick, given the enemy what they needed. Is Policy1st using her to rig the election?
But of course this is not true, not possible, has not happened. This announcement isn’t a betrayal. It’s not even a problem. Once Mishima calms down, it sounds like the best news she has heard in weeks.
She moves back along the aisle, keeping an eye out for more vid recording as she goes. The intricate curls of fluoron that cover the ceiling like a thicket of baroque chandeliers provide a strong, even lighting, and when Mishima looks at the glass walls she sees the reflection of the bright, densely packed auditorium. Glancing up, she can make out the dark shadows of the crows outside, floating and silent as sharks. She turns her back to the wall and continues scanning the crowd while she considers the merger.
Election guidelines are fairly strict on coalitions. They do not affect the count to the Supermajority unless the two governments fully merge—identical policies, complete subsuming of one into the other. Policy1st and Earth1st form one of the rare pairs that can pull it off, mainly because they used to be a single party. The Earth1st spinoff was a matter of emphasis rather than difference, a savvy marketing stunt that had produced significant gains. Sort of the opposite of synergy, the sum of the parts greater than the whole.
Reuniting at this particular moment should up their stock again. Policy1st and Earth1st combined do not take the lead for the Supermajority, but it might get them into fourth or fifth place. That should get them momentum, credibility to draw in those cynics (Mishima among them) who believe a government based on good governance will never convince the majority of the voters to elect them. Some of those people (and Mishima is not among them) choose to vote instead for what they see as the least of the possible evils; this merger could inspire them to actually support a government they like. Maybe.
* * *
In a bar in Manila, Ken’s jaw drops, and then he is biting his lip to keep from jumping up, whooping, and pumping his fist in the air. Suzuki is a genius! Why didn’t they think of this earlier? Had he been strategically holding it back to get the momentum now? When they need it, when it might be enough—no, he can’t even let himself dream. Not yet. He starts frantically refreshing polling sites.
The flight from Lima to Manila was almost enough to convince Ken that the mantle tunnels would be worth it. By the time he’s three drinks deep on debate night, however (and wanting to be in the right time zone for the event might have been a small part of the reason he’s back in Asia), he’s happy to hear Suzuki railing against it.
“Time and again, we’ve heard large corporations urging a risky new technology on us, one that they say is totally safe and entirely necessary. Policy1st is not against progress, or against the economy, or against high-speed transportation. But we are in favor of knowing the dangers before we commit ourselves to expensive, disastrous projects that will benefit a tiny few. And we are against drilling holes through the planet so the rich can shave a few hours off their vacation commute!”
It’s stronger rhetoric than usual. Policy1st’s spokespeople are not supposed to vilify anyone, not even the rich, and Ken thrills to the knowledge that it’s go-for-broke time. He twitches the volume up on his earpiece; although most of the clients in the bar are focused on the debate, a small but noisy contingent is belting karaoke in the back.
“Our esteemed colleague”—it is the spokesperson for 888, a China-based corporate government, who speaks after Suzuki—“worries much about the risks he does not know but says nothing about the risks that have already been confirmed. Excessive plane travel is choking our planet and strangling our economies. Mantle tunnels will use a combination of gravitational forces and sophisticated engineering for clean and sustainable long-haul travel. 888 is committed to continuing our efforts to fully leverage this great advance in technology.”
Ken frowns. You would think Earth1st would have the environmental angle sewn up. Maybe this unification thing was last minute and they didn’t have time to brief Suzuki.
The next three spokespeople each take up different counterarguments, as neatly as if they had planned it together. They are piling on Suzuki, and to cheer himself up, Ken starts planning out his next few days. He sent Suzuki the intel from the profesora in Lima, and there’s been no answer yet. Debate prep must have been all encompassing, but Ken’s starting to feel antsy. He figures he should get confirmation from additional sources here, but he’s not sure there’s much point. He’s not going to get anyone to say it more clearly than the profesora did. If that didn’t get a reaction, what will?
An idea that has been lurking in the back of his mind filters its way to the front: he could send the recording of the interview directly to Mishima. His noncommittal searches haven’t uncovered what her job at Information is, but she’s obviously influential. Mishima would know what to do about Liberty.
He hasn’t heard from her since Tokyo, which might be because she’s busy, but might also be because she’s forgotten all about him. Deciding that it’s at least partly business, that he won’t look like a lovesick idiot if he sends her a casual message, he whispers, “Hey! How’s it going?” into his composer and sends it. He tries not to wait for an answer, which gets more difficult in proportion to the time that passes and the beers drunk, but then he remembers that the debate must be a heavy work night for her, and resolves not to think about it until the morning.
* * *
Mishima doesn’t see Ken’s message; she’s locked down unsecured communications while she’s working. Even if she hadn’t, her eyes are focused on the debate stage, flicking between the speakers, the subtitles, and the annotation from her Information. Suzuki’s surprise move has put the corporates on the defensive, which for most of them means the offensive; she’s waiting for one of them to go off scrip
t.
The debaters sit around a conference table. The vid broadcasting ban means they’re able to stay linked in to their Information, and Mishima can see the occasional flash over someone’s eye as they receive messages from aides or update their feeds. Not Johnny Fabré; except for occasional glances around the table at his rivals, his eyes stay trained on his lap, where, Mishima guesses, he’s positioned his handheld. Still not comfortable with eyeball-level projections, apparently. She wonders how old he is. His well-tanned skin does look a little leathery, but it’s hard to judge with all the foundation piled on.
“My friends,” he begins, and Mishima has to marvel at how he can sound so warm and engaged while reading off a screen. If she closes her eyes, it feels as though he’s making eye contact with her. When she opens them, he’s just a handsome, strange-looking man talking to his handheld. “We live in a time of upheaval and change. But at Liberty we cling to core principles, principles which have guided governments for centuries. Our freedom…”
He goes on like that for at least five minutes; Mishima loses focus and has to wander slowly around the room as if she were on patrol to stay awake. It’s clearly a canned speech: he hasn’t made any reference to the Policy1st-Earth1st merger. She can’t even remember what question he was supposed to be answering.
Then she catches it. “We believe in righting historical wrongs, because the boundaries of this modern system do not always leave room for justice.” That’s enough for her, but he goes on. “Certainly, as we continue to work for freedom and prosperity for all, every system must be refreshed from time to time with revolution, revolutionary ideas and bold policies.”
Mishima looks around the audience, expecting outcry or nervous glances or at least expressions of surprise. Nothing. It wasn’t an applause line (applause isn’t allowed in the debate hall, but many of the performers leave brief gaps for those who might cheer at the broadcasts), and he’s still talking. She scans the crowd again. One couple whispering, but it looks more amorous than political. A woman coughs slightly into a germ filter, the light shimmering over the veins in her temples as she sits back again. Mishima looks at her handheld, checks the transcript and the annotations. The transcript skips “revolution,” assuming that he stumbled before finishing “revolutionary” and then corrected himself. Just to be sure, Mishima listens to the recording from a few seconds earlier: yes, she heard it correctly. The notes are brief, since the sentence is basically gibberish: Liberty’s definition of “for all” is suspect; they do not work for freedom or prosperity for those outside of their centenals. They concentrate more on continued stability than on revolutionary ideas or bold policies. She whispers a furious message to the analyst bureau, asking them to take another look at that section. The seconds pass and nothing changes. It’s right there! How can they not see it? The voters, her bosses, how can they ignore this?