Gilly and Zak leave the tram at Avenue of the Republic, an older area in downtown Nice of vernacular four story buildings which are built right up to the sidewalk. They head South and cross the block at the next corner before turning toward the Acropolis on Rue Baria. Stepping to Boulevard Risso, they standing at the corner of the esplanade in front of the south end of the building, its spot lit main façade a blocky white stucco with the word Acropolis spread along the top. A giant banner on the side of the building in yellow and white announces the conference and its events. Lighted semi-hemispherical fountains separated by a tall shooting fountain operate from a common pool in front of the building. Gilly and Zak can see the mysterious Tete Carree sculpture down the street from where they stand.
“What the hell is that?” Gilly asks in disbelief at the size of the mammoth grey block resting implacably on the chin and neck of a human head.
Zak looks.
“Nihilism, I guess. I thought this was the entrance.”
Zak surveys the park and Promenade of Arts to the South and the Acropolis to the North.
“I think it’s this way,” he says, starting off along the sidewalk on Risso Boulevard. Gilly has little choice but to follow.
They come to the main entrance on the East side of the building.
“This is it!” declares Zak.
Dashing up the concrete steps, they enter the Agora, the big foyer. Racing up the escalators and through the building, they find the Apollon theater at the North end and enter at the back to find seats empty at the rear. The large Apollon is divided into major sections that rise one above the other. Each section is separated by concrete walls that taken together make the theater look like some kind of modern fortification. The ceiling climbs in undulating panels that rise to the theater’s upper balconies.
The giant proscenium stage is dark and iridescent blue. Sweeping panels hover suspended over the speakers, listing countries in attendance. An emblem chosen for the conference shines on the wall behind the speakers, who sit at two silver podiums positioned opposite each other. A silver circle runs around the front of the stage, pulling the podiums into its embrace. Glowing blue light is cast by a series of floor lights on either end of the stage.
Zak and Gilly stand at the back until an usher approaches. It strikes Zak as he finds a seat that there had to be more to Wang’s efforts than just one person acting on his own. Zak looks out on the elaborate theater, peopled with those involved in international security and wonders how Wang could have worked alone. Surely the leaders of UNK tasked Wang and not the other way around. They believed his information could affect not just a country, but a world. Zak had become convinced that Sa’d had to be one of those men, and here he was on the stage, speaking right now.
“Of course we have to assume that any threat to world security is going to impact differentially. Some may be affected and some may not, or, at least, not as much. But I agree with Jasper here that it is the vitality of intergovernmental arrangements for security that is tested. The strength of those arrangements derive, has to derive, from their own legitimacy and transparency to their own publics. But that authority can be eroded in a thousand ways and through a million compromises. Should individual freedoms narrow and governmental and social systems broaden their reach into private preserves, it becomes a problem. A system in authority can begin to control communications, at first in ways that have broad support, only to find that acceding to popular will in the end can lead to a reduction in access to unpopular views.
Similarly monitoring all communication may diminish individual privacy but it can make people safer. Believing that there is nothing they can do, people submit to these usually incremental changes in their personal freedoms. While the initial objective of a safer society has been met, the weight of these kinds of measures will interfere with the market for ideas and inevitably slow economic growth. They will feed opposition groups and movements. These measures are not easy to implement, and they can have unintentionally harsh and not entirely equal effects. They are sure to generate opposition, some extreme, some violent.
I agree with Jasper but take it one step further. If a web of government and corporate interest has intertwined globally, perhaps only for security reasons, but most probably for something more, than that result can pose its own risk. Nobody wants to admit it, but all this may lead to a new form of big brother, on a scale never seen or even imagined before.
“International Big Brotherism!” replies the portly Jasper.
For some reason this is thought funny and the audience laughs.
“Yes. Well, it’s a good idea to keep in mind that when tyranny appears to have closed every avenue of opposition, when things are at their most hopeless, people will not rebel. They only rebel when freedom appears to be a real possibility.”
“And what are we to take that to mean?” asks the moderator, somewhat querulously. He stands in the center of the silver circle, in front of the panelists, holding a microphone.
Kadin chuckles.
“Only that those who wear the mantel of an overbearing authority need to be mindful. Such authority cannot last forever, and it rarely lasts for very long…”
A loud explosion concusses the theater’s perfect acoustics, so loudly that Zak can’t help but involuntarily wince. Kadin Sa’d is cut off in mid-sentence. Nothing moves on the stage. People stare. They turn their heads, trying to locate the source of the shot.
In the silence immediately following the report, the only sound seems to be the hard slap of Connor Kalil’s rubber soled shoes as he comes charging across the parquet of the stage. Kadin’s body slumps to the left in his chair and begins to swivel. Connor arrives only in time to catch the financier’s body before it falls to the floor.
Zak’s heart is racing and about to explode from his chest. He stands up and is utterly stunned. There are cries from the audience amid a universal gasp. Suddenly the stage is filled with emergency personnel and at the same time Zak hears people racing across the back of the theater. In a moment there are shouts in the balconies above.
“Zak.”
He hears Gilly at his side, his voice coming to him as from the bottom of a well, and feels a hand on his arm. Zak’s mind is still telling him this can’t be happening.
“Zak.”
He finally turns and looks at Gilly.
“Dude, we gotta get out of here,” Gilly tells him firmly.
This seems to shake Zak loose and he nods absently.
Gilly takes off up the aisle, alert and on the look-out for anyone who might try and stop them.
Zak on the other hand is still looking at the stage, which is now crawling with people, and at the audience, which is now flowing fast toward the exits.
He turns and follows.
Chapter 69
On Fire Page 68