It happened so quietly, that Ellie was sometimes surprised how detailed these preference settings were, and how many of these things she’d set, years ago, and then forgotten she ever had. Sometimes she picked up Sameh’s gloves and found them oddly thick, or found Sameh’s hair-ties were too stretchy, or her sleeping bag too warm. Sometimes she forgot Sameh’s backup old-style sidearm took a nine-round magazine and not the thirteen rounds Ellie expected. It was a complicated, useful, wonderful logistical system, and Ellie was very glad they had it.
They went to be fitted for their body armor first, because body armor was the most complicated item to adjust. The ceramic gels needed to be contoured to the wearer’s body exactly, so much so that gaining or losing weight on a week-long leave would force a refit. The armor was complicated, with all its pads and insets into their coveralls, but it could still be adjusted and set in less than half an hour, from their saved settings, and only needed to be pulled on and checked when they arrived.
It was ready when they reached the armory, and it fit, as it always did. Ellie had granted the local fitters access to her and Sameh’s data as soon as they landed, and a message had arrived while she was still in Jackson’s meeting saying everything was ready to collect.
Ellie made sure her armor fitted, and Sameh’s as well, and they both jumped around, and tugged and slapped at each other, making sure nothing was going to shift out of place.
They took everything off again, and left it hanging, ready to put on later that night, and then Ellie looked at weapons.
The base seemed to have limitless quantities of weapons, but all she picked out in the end were two reliable old-design submachine guns that fired traditional bullets, and two modern self-targeting sidearms with selectable caseless ammunition. One of each for each of them, and nothing more to carry around. Ellie didn’t completely trust the self-targeting software and preferred to aim herself, but she took the modern weapons anyway because she didn’t want the weight of a second, much heavier, older gun.
Sameh began picking up rifles, and Ellie looked up and said, “No.”
“Why not?” Sameh said, sounding annoyed.
“Just no,” Ellie said. “It’s a recovery operation, not a raid.”
Sameh sighed, although she knew perfectly well what Ellie meant. This was supposed to be a covert operation, at least until they located the missing kid, and going in only lightly armed would encourage them to stay low-key. It would encourage Sameh to, anyway, which was mostly the point. Sameh being only lightly armed was what Ellie actually intended, and Sameh knew that too, and so didn’t bother arguing.
“No grenades either,” Ellie said, without looking up, knowing that Sameh had probably turned to stare at those almost immediately.
Sameh had, Ellie saw, when she glanced up to check.
Sameh shrugged, and grinned, and then began loading an utterly impractical mix of white phosphorous, hollow-point, and flechette rounds into magazines for her submachine gun, probably just to show Ellie she would do as she liked. Sameh liked odd ammunition mixes. There wasn’t really much point in an automatic weapon that emptied its clip in a few seconds, it was far easier to just switch the whole magazine to the load you wanted if you needed something different, but Sameh did it this way anyway, just because she did. She also picked up three different knives, one a folding ceramic knife that would be illegal anywhere with actual laws, and then a set of throwing knives too, which Ellie knew she couldn’t use.
All she was really doing was picking up extra weight, but she’d carry it without complaining so Ellie decided not to care.
She ignored Sameh, and went through all their other equipment instead, making sure everything they needed was there, and working correctly, and set correctly as well. She checked the tech first, comms earplugs and internet-enabled contact lenses and packets of sensor drones that fit in a pocket but could deploy and create a hemisphere of surveillance and cover a kilometer across. Also night-vision visors and satellite phones and the tablets they needed to run everything else, and spare tablets as well, and then second spares, too.
Ellie checked the tech, and ran diagnostic tests, and made sure they had everything they needed lined up, and then she made a pile of the dull and mundane equipment they were taking as well. Food packs and water bags and water-purification drops and spare clothes, a roll of the local credit script for bribes, and a first-aid kid, which she made sure matched the med software on their tablets and actually had the correct blood-types set too.
She spent an hour going over everything, checking each item twice to make sure. Sameh sat on a nearby table and watched, bored but patient, although she was probably only patient because she knew it would start a fight if she tried to hurry Ellie now.
Jackson watched too, but less well at ease. He seemed almost nervous, Ellie thought, presumably in case she found something wrong.
Ellie ignored them both, and went through all the gear methodically. Only when she was completely satisfied did she load it into their packs and carrying harnesses.
*
Once Ellie was satisfied with their equipment, they went and got their visas. Měi-guó was still America. It might have collapsed into chaos and bankruptcy, but they still insisted you carry a visa in-country, and would try and deport you if they didn’t find one.
Ellie had almost decided not to worry, that they didn’t have time to waste, but Jackson told her the local authority over the wall was quite pedantic, and had just enough tech to use facial recognition and make a nuisance of itself, and it really wasn’t worth the firefight they’d need to get rid of the border guards if they were seen.
Ellie was irritated, but let Jackson convince her. He said it wouldn’t take long and it really was best just to get it done.
“Fuck it,” Ellie said. “Fine. Let’s just go.”
“Go pretend to care what legacy governments think,” Sameh said, and Jackson grinned at her, like he agreed with that too.
The visa office was a shed in a corner of the debt-recovery base, between the incinerator and a pile of rusting broken-down vehicles. They all went inside, and Jackson explained what he wanted, and the clerk said that was no problem, all polite and friendly, and asked for their papers and said he’d help them one at a time.
Ellie couldn’t imagine how else he planned to issue government paperwork, but she didn’t say anything so rude. She just nodded, and held out her identity cards, and didn’t make a fuss. The clerk looked at her cards and then printed her a tag. He told her to keep it on her at all times, preferably on the outside of her clothing.
It all seemed fairly routine.
Then Sameh went over, and said she needed a visa too, and the clerk asked for her citizenship documents, and Sameh just shrugged and said she didn’t have any.
That caused a fuss.
Ellie blamed herself. She really should have remembered. It always caused a fuss, Sameh not having papers and dealing with tinpot little governments like these, but actual government contact happened so rarely that it slipped Ellie’s mind between crises like this one.
Sameh was technically still stateless, like half the world was stateless. She was stateless because she’d never had the chance to become an actual citizen of an actual state when she was young, before all the countries began to disappear. She had company identification, confirming she was who she said she was, and her corporate secure-ID was more trustworthy than Ellie’s old passport card anyway. In fact, the clerk had used Ellie’s secure-ID to verify who she was, and then just glanced at her Australian passport card to make sure she had something which looked like one.
That glance meant a lot. That glance meant it was pride, not security, that they cared about here. It meant they didn’t care what you showed them, and didn’t care if it was real, and that even a bad forgery would do, as long as you showed them something. It was about being part of the club of national citizens, not about who you actually were.
It was stupid, Ellie thought. Passports and c
itizenship didn’t matter anywhere in the world except here, but Měi-guó America was an aging empire and its traditions counted terribly to itself. They still insisted everyone spoke English here, too.
After some fuss, and veiled threats from Jackson, the clerk called a supervisor, who must have been the only other person who could fit in the small office. The supervisor listened, and saw Jackson’s expression, and gave in quite quickly and issued Sameh a visa. They would have probably made her wait another day without Jackson’s intervention, just to show the entire debt-recovery world that they weren’t going to be pushed around by a mere business enterprise.
With Jackson there, it was just done. Sameh’s visa was issued. Jackson could probably have their canteen privileges revoked or something, and that wasn’t a risk they thought worth taking.
Ellie waited, trying to be patient, and let Jackson sort it out. She carefully took Sameh’s hand, though, to make sure Sameh stayed patient too. There were times, Ellie thought, when she sympathized quite deeply with the corporate leaders who wanted to just have done with it and abolish states altogether.
Finally, with their visas issued, they all went back across the compound towards the operations centre.
There was a market of sorts in an open space near the gate, where local people sold souvenirs and drugs and non-standard packaged foods. Markets like this usually appeared wherever foreign personnel were stationed, and always had, and always would. It was just part of being at war.
They had walked through the market on the way to the American visa office, but now, walking back, Sameh stopped to look. One stall had books, actual paper ones, spread out on a rug on the ground. Sameh paused, thoughtfully, and then poked at a few with her boot.
She seemed tempted. She liked souvenirs, and was always intrigued by antiques. She looked at the vendor, who was watching her with impassive blue eyes.
“May I?” Sameh said to him.
Sameh was usually polite to new civilian locals, at least until they collectively annoyed her. Ellie half-assumed that was mostly to make herself feel like she’d tried, so that later, when something went wrong, she could feel like she’d been reasonable, and that therefore whoever was irritating her must be entirely at fault. Like the entire population of the MidEast.
Sameh asked, politely, and the vendor nodded, so Sameh bent down, reaching out for a book.
“I wouldn’t,” Jackson said quickly. He had been watching nervously.
Sameh looked up at him.
“They’re filthy,” he said, sounding shocked. “Look at the stamps, those are from a public library.”
Ellie wanted to grin. So said the man who ate food out the actual ground. It turned out Jackson was squeamish after all. Sameh had noticed too, and was trying not to smile, although it probably wasn’t obvious to anyone who didn’t know her very well.
“Thank you for your concern,” Sameh said politely. “I understand.”
“Do you? They’ve been touched by hundreds of strangers.”
“Yes,” Sameh said, gravely.
“Hundreds,” Jackson said. “For years and years. They aren’t safe to touch. They could have anything on them. If you want one, tell him which, and I’ll arrange for it to be sanitized and delivered to you.”
Sameh nodded to Jackson, and kept looking at the books, but now she seemed to have thought better of the idea. She didn’t pick anything up.
Ellie began to get impatient. She knew Sameh was intrigued by antiques, but such curiosities were everywhere. Sameh could buy them from a proper shop on the internet, properly cleaned and sealed for display. She could probably even buy something sourced from the particular local library near here, if she especially wanted that. Antiques had become almost worthless once all the public institutions had closed down, so their only real value now was as mementos, like a rock or a used bullet.
“Come on,” Ellie said, after a moment. “We should go and try and sleep.”
Sameh kept looking at the books. “I slept.”
“On a plane?” Ellie said, disbelieving.
Sameh shrugged.
“No you didn’t,” Ellie said. “You never sleep when you fly.”
“I might have…”
“You didn’t. So come on.”
Sameh hesitated a moment longer, then grinned, and followed Ellie. They would rest, at least, Ellie thought, and try for a few hours of sleep before the operation began.
Chapter 5
All over the globe, the shift in energy sources from fossil fuels to solar and wind had been disruptive. It had changed the world.
The shift ought not to have even been noticed by the end-consumers of energy. Power was power, and was simply there when you wanted it, and no-one should really have cared how their lights worked or their car ran, as long as everything did.
But they had cared. They had cared more than anyone then had expected. They had cared because energy was expensive, and because energy was oddly emotional, too.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, energy had mattered to everything. Energy had counted for more than goods, or people, or weapons, or laws, and whoever controlled energy, whoever controlled the means by which energy was produced, they had all the power in the world.
Although none at the time had known it.
The corporation which Ellie and Sameh now worked for was one of those energy-producers. NewSol had been lucky. It had been manufacturing the right product, at the right time, when the attitudes of the world’s consumers had begun to shift.
In the late twentieth century, energy had suddenly become political. It had become about emotion. On one level, energy was still energy, an input into a system which produced work or other outcomes, but on another level, people no longer saw it that way. The kind of energy one used expressed something about the self, and then, very quickly, the type of energy one consumed became about more than self-fulfillment, it became about loathing other groups of people, and their lifestyles, and their provider corporations.
Loathing some, and worshipping others, and NewSol had been fortunate enough to be one of those which was worshipped.
NewSol Corporation had begun as a domestic solar-panel manufacturer at the end of the twentieth century. It had sold reasonably good panels reasonably cheaply, and been utterly unnoticeable in a crowd of other small-and-medium businesses.
No-one had realized it then, not even NewSol, but the world had been about to change.
NewSol company historians now saw NewSol as being at the forefront of the enormous social changes of the twenty-first century, and a key early-mover in the post-modern to last-modern transition of consumers’ lives from forced dependency on the monopoly of a single nation-state, to selective cooperation with a series of corporate benefactors and patrons. It had been an enormous shift, a liberating shift, and NewSol had been one of the first and earliest companies to make the transition.
They had transitioned without entirely realizing, because it had been an utterly different world, back then.
In the early twenty-first century, large-scale energy producers were usually owned or licensed by governments. Usually they were outsized and unwieldy, gave poor service, imposed arbitrary pricing, and had rude employees as well.
Consumers had become hostile. They didn’t like monopolies, and the inability to choose. They had become hostile to the large energy companies in the same way they had become disenchanted with the single-provider model common among national governments. They didn’t like being forced to do business with an entity, any entity, if they had no illusion of choice about who they dealt with. This observation, first made by Nobel-laureate Anh Dũng Silva, was the underpinning of the modern economic system.
It was why people had been so unhappy in the early twenty-first century.
Consumers then had disliked all of their corporate provider-partners. They had wanted change simply for the sake of change. They had loathed their financial institutions, and vehicle manufacturers, and toll-road operators,
and food-providers. They had loathed any business which had a monopoly on the supply of a given good or service. They had obviously loathed their governments, and had thrown those shackles off gratefully when mid-century fiscal imprudence finally made that liberation possible, and they had especially loathed their energy and telecommunications providers.
The providers NewSol had displaced.
NewSol had freed consumers from the tyranny of large government-owned energy providers. With NewSol’s panels, it quickly became possible for consumers to make their own electricity, and so they did. They did by the tens and hundreds of millions. They preferred it, even if the twenty-year cost of either option was exactly the same. They wanted to avoid doing any business with the large, established energy providers that much.
This was the heart of NewSol’s success. People wanted choice, even if there was no financial advantage. NewSol had realized this before its competitors, and had begun to market their solar panels as a liberating technology conferring freedom, rather than a product whose sole value was price-competitiveness. Consumers responded, and NewSol grew, and rapid conversion and expansion drove the development of cheaper and more efficient panels. Eventually, NewSol had sold enough of its panels to have one on almost every roof in the wealthiest parts of the world, and to become one of the hundred largest corporations in China.
It had also upended the existing global business of electricity supply forever, but by then NewSol had understood exactly what it was doing.
By that time, when most domestic and commercial energy supply was already based on rooftop solar panels, large industrial generation facilities and vast transmission networks were no longer needed. Not when every rooftop was its own energy source. Those transmission networks were expensive to maintain, and barely used, and NewSol had begun the second phase of its expansion. It had begun buying up the existing transmission networks in many countries, the actual poles and wires, and adapting them for data connectivity, and as they did this they had their second stroke of good fortune.
The Debt Collectors War Page 6