“Sorry to hear that.” Chayan sipped his coffee.
“Yeah, well, what can you do?” Silas glanced at the older man. “How you doing?”
Chayan shrugged.
Silas scrambled for any kind of innocent question that might draw Chayan out more. “You speak English very well, yet you’ve never been out of the country?”
“To do my job, I had to evaluate the incoming media from all over the world. The content considered the most hostile was always American.” Chayan met Silas’ eyes. “I was very good at my job.”
“I’ve got another question for you.” Silas shifted closer to Chayan. “Why? Why is the outside world all evil?”
Chayan sighed and stared into his mug. “It’s a convoluted story.”
“Help me understand?”
“In the beginning it was geography. To avoid being swallowed up by China or the USSR Dauria had to enforce strong borders. I don’t know what the true history is. Chances are it’s buried under propaganda so deep no one really understands it. Somewhere along the line it became about nationalism. Preserving our way of life and resisting the immorality of the outside world. She might know more than I do.” He nodded at Ekko.
Ekko straightened, frowning at her screen. “The Motsta R900? No, I don’t know what that is.”
Silas held up his hand to forestall Chayan from saying anything else.
Motsta.
Why did Silas know that word?
“The Motsta R900 is a new line of disposable phone,” Ekko muttered, no doubt reading the chat reply out loud. “Yeah? What’s so great about them?”
Silas toggled his screens so he could see the chat as well as the name clicked into place. He’d used Motsta disposable phones a few times in Europe. It was a small, Swedish company if his memory served.
“The R900 model isn’t compatible with the...” Ekko’s voice trailed off and she made a blind grab for Silas’ knee.
“I’m reading it,” he said softly as he brought up the spec sheet for the phone.
Sweet Jesus.
He skimmed the details, parsing out the tech terms to get to the gist of the phone.
The R900 model of the disposable phone made it possible for people who lived in a country with a firewall, like Dauria, to get around that firewall.
“When did the R900 come out?” he whispered.
Ekko cleared her throat. “Hey, anyone know when that came out? Is it widely available? It’s been out for a few months? Wow.”
She sat back in her chair and looked at Silas.
Why would anyone bring up that phone? Was this significant? Was this person one of her contacts?
Two options came to mind.
First, teasing the phone details was some kind of trap. He didn’t know what kind, but it could be suspicious information.
Or, and the option his gut liked, people were using the R900 right now to tune in because they knew something was going on in the outside world.
How many people were watching from Dauria right now on their disposable phone? What should they say? Should they say anything?
The weight of hundreds of thousands of people pressed down on Silas. Getting Chayan to New York City wasn’t just about him. It was about so many others. Where did they begin?
EKKO COULD BARELY BREATHE.
Her contact, one of the people she knew was a regular viewer from Dauria, had just spilled the beans on how it was happening.
The new user handles in her chat made sense now. Or at least some of them did. The ones with the capital Rs at least.
She couldn’t ask how many people were watching illegally. That would put those people in danger. She’d long ago come to the conclusion that someone in the DSS was monitoring her streams. But she wanted to know.
What she was doing, getting Chayan to the UN, it was only part of the solution. For real change to happen, people within Dauria would need to make their own stand for change. All she could do was help the world not turn a blind eye on what happened beyond those borders.
How many knew about Chayan?
National media in Dauria would have blocked the story, but people talked. One of the drivers or an off-handed comment by a guard to the right person could spread the story. But that would take time.
Was it possible others had been watching from somewhere beyond the trees?
One of Ekko’s moderators pinged her with a private message.
You okay? You’re just staring at the screen.
Because her world was shifting.
She had to say something. Talk about this.
If she were home, she would never have hesitated. But that was the safety being thousands of miles from Dauria gave her. Now, she was just a few hours’ drive and the threat was much more real.
“Sorry.” She cleared her throat and smiled at the camera. “I was just looking at those specs. I’m blown away that this is even a thing. Just think about how something like that could be used. For good, I mean.”
The chat comments were coming in faster than she could read through all of them. Despite her lower than average viewer count, those watching were all talking at once.
This was a chance to talk, to answer questions and delve into the issues. She’d promised a game focused stream today, but she couldn’t pass that up.
Ekko navigated her avatar to an out of the way corner before scrolling back up to the question she wanted to answer.
“Do I think that the R900 phones would be useful?” she read then eased back in her chair. “In short, hell yes. I know internet privacy is more or less a myth these days. I accept that. What I don’t accept is an institution or government censoring our access to information or news. Especially when our main sources might be biased or corrupt.”
There, she’d neatly said what she wanted without naming Dauria. Though at this point it was only a matter of time before the conversation went that way.
Sure enough, three questions from users with a capital R in their name popped up.
She sighed and picked the best worded question. She didn’t think any of those three were native English speakers, which only supported her theory.
“Would the R900 phones be useful to people in a country with an active firewall? I’m guessing you’re asking about a country like China or Dauria?” She shrugged. “I think the answer is obvious. Yes, a device that would allow a person to circumvent the firewalls would be hugely valuable. A device like that would let people find answers for themselves. They wouldn’t just be spoon-fed whatever the national media wants them to believe. We’re human beings. We all think differently. Trying to conform us to one ideology is an exercise in futility. But that’s my opinion. And we should all be allowed to have our own.”
Chat was moving so fast she had to manually scroll up to just skim the conversation and keep track of what everyone was saying. Her moderator team was all on-line now and wading in, keeping people from too much fighting.
“Do I know how or where the United Nations team is?” She couldn’t escape those questions, so might as well put that one to rest. “No. I wasn’t an official member of the team. I’m fairly certain most of them didn’t want me on the trip. I was in the press pool, or whatever they called it. Which means, I don’t know anything you don’t.”
Even scrolling meant the chat just barreled ahead of her.
This was getting majorly out of hand.
A troll question popped out at her, and before she could stop herself she read a censored version of the question out loud. “Where do you—me—get off talking about Dauria? You don’t even live there.”
She sat up a little straighter and looked at the camera. “Anyone who listens to me talk about Dauria for more than a hot second knows I was born there. My parents will tell you we immigrated, but the truth is that we were all smuggled out of the country. They wanted us—my brother and I—to have a better life. I don’t have many memories from when we lived there, but I see the mark that country and the toxic regime has left on the world ev
ery day. I see it in my parents, and I feel it in my brother’s execution. So don’t come to my stream and tell me to keep my damn mouth shut, because I won’t. I can’t. My family sacrificed so I could have freedom of speech to say things like, Dauria is wrong. I also know that there are consequences to what I say, and that even uttering that sentence means I could be executed just like my brother. The only difference is that no one would televise my death.”
Her hands shook and her heart pounded.
No one except her earliest viewers knew her brother’s death had been televised. She hadn’t spoken about it because it was painful and nothing was gained by airing that detail. But now? Now people had to know just how horrible that government was.
A private message popped up from another of her moderators.
Hey. We are grabbing the best/most asked questions and dumping them into an email draft in the shared email.
Thank goodness.
She shook her hands out under the table.
Ekko breathed a sigh of relief and mentally made a note to send her team a gift card. They weren’t paid to wade through this. For the most part they were people she’d met in her early days of streaming before and after her brother’s death. They helped her because they believed in her message or simply wanted to. Ekko couldn’t pay them, but she always sent gifts when she was able.
“Okay, we are switching up how we’re doing this. The mod team is collecting your questions so I can answer them. Hopefully we’ll get back to questing before most of you head off to bed.” She didn’t really think they would. There was too much real life stuff going on.
Silas and Chayan had their heads together behind the screen of his laptop, their voices low. She didn’t know what they were saying, but there was a palpable energy coming from them.
What else was going on?
No, she had to focus.
“Next question...” She clicked into the email and brought up the email draft. Lines appeared and disappeared in real time. “Do I think speaking out about the Daurian mess changes anything?”
She could barely hold her answer in. It just bubbled out of her. “Yes. Change happens when we talk about things. I think something people who don’t live in Dauria completely miss is how families are weaponized against each other. As soon as kids go to school, they’re taught that if an adult or another kid says anything bad about the president or the government, they’re to report it.”
Ekko leaned toward the camera, her hands clasped in her lap. “Let me say this plainly, children as young as five and six years old have reported what their parents have said in the privacy of their own home or maybe the heat of the moment and lost their families. When I say lost, it means one of two things. If their parents are normal, average people—they’re executed. Or, excuse me, culled for the betterment of the country. If they’re important and say, work for the government, the children are removed and placed into the state system for orphans and their parents are sent to indoctrination camps for reprogramming. Before we get off this topic, those kids? They’re rarely adopted out. The government uses orphans to fill the ranks of the DSS and other agencies. They’re taught, programmed, from an early age that the government is always right and they must do everything to support that. They’re brainwashed and any chance at a happy, normal life is taken from them.”
She eased back into her chair and took a deep breath. “Yes, I do think talking about it changes things. It’s when we don’t talk about it or ignore it that it gets worse.”
The questions kept coming. Some of them were easily answered, others struck a chord in her. Many viewers were opening their eyes to a reality they hadn’t realized was there.
Ekko glanced back at the email.
There at the top of the draft was a line in all caps.
STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING. GO TO A COMMERCIAL. CLICK THIS.
“Guys, I’m going to take a quick bio break. We’re going to watch a video from one of our sponsors, so please don’t go anywhere. These sponsors keep me streaming, so you know what to do.”
Ekko clicked the button, sending the streamers to watch a trailer for a new show.
“What are you guys whispering about?” she asked as she clicked the link her moderators had sent her.
Silas and Chayan lifted their heads.
“My name is Lin,” a woman began saying in heavily accented English.
“Is that a new one?” Silas jumped up and circled to stand behind her.
“A new one what?” Ekko directed her attention to the screen.
The video was a small rectangle of a young girl’s face. She had familiar light brown skin. Her eyes were shaped like Ekko’s. Her hair was short, partially falling over her eyes and in the background was the domed roof common to each regional capital building.
Oh, no...
“I live in southern province of Dauria. My, ah, mother sister was killed by DSS. When my mother was too sad, they took her away. I haven’t seen her in...” Lin held up two fingers. “Years. I want to live where this doesn’t happen. Like Ekko Kaur. I want that.”
Ekko froze. She felt as though something were breathing down her neck. “Oh my God. Someone has to tell her to take that down.”
“She’s not the only one.” Silas grabbed her chair and rolled her over to look at his screen. “There are a dozen of them that went up at the same time. Not all of them are in English, but the gist is pretty clear.”
“Silas.” She turned and stared up at him. “Silas, they have to take these videos down or they’ll be killed.”
“Zain just replied,” Chayan announced. “He says the...metadata? The metadata makes him think these were recorded and posted using those R900 phones.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Ekko covered her mouth with her hands. What had she just done?
It was one thing for her to talk about the injustice of it all. She was relatively safe out here beyond the borders. But these kids? They were still at the mercy of a government who wouldn’t hesitate to kill them.
“They have to take these down,” she said again.
Silas kneeled in front of her and took her hands in his. “Ekko, babe, the cat is out of the bag on this. Someday the people in Dauria are going to have to stand up for themselves. There is no such thing as a bloodless revolution.”
“But...”
“Silas is right,” Chayan said. “The best thing you can do now is to tell them to hide.”
Ekko nodded.
Her screen flashed, indicating the stream was coming back on.
She shooed Silas away and faced the camera, still feeling shell shocked.
How did she begin to address this? She’d been called out by name. It wasn’t something she could ignore.
The computer chimed and she knew she was back on air.
Her game had timed out, leaving the stream of just her with the game behind her. For several seconds she could only blink at the camera.
Say something...
“There are videos being posted right now from people who are in Dauria right now.” She lifted her gaze to the camera. Was she going to stand for change? Or would she chase more people back into their safe boxes? “What those of you do next matters. Like I have said many times over, expressing any negative feelings or thoughts can have life-ending consequences. I can’t tell you to take a stand. The stakes are too high for me to sit out here and tell you to do that. What I want to say is, I hear you, and so do others. Be careful. Be smart. Stay as safe as you can.”
What did she say after this?
No, there was nothing else for her to do.
“I think that’s all I can do today, guys. I know we’re ending a little early and I’m sorry, but all of this has taken a toll on me. I hope we’ll be back tomorrow, but there’s no guarantee. Please check for updates when I’ll be streaming again. Goodnight, Bat Brigade. I hope we talk again soon.”
She clicked the button to end the stream then slumped in her chair.
Was this because of her? Had she star
ted this? How many people would die?
It wasn’t a question of if. She knew the DSS would see these videos, find some of those people and kill them. It didn’t matter that Lin looked all of twenty and was practically still a kid. She was too old to be reprogrammed. It would be easier and cheaper to kill her.
“We need to save these videos,” Chayan said. “Is that possible? Can we do that?”
Silas shrugged. “Maybe? I imagine it’s something Zain would be better equipped to deal with.”
Ekko met Chayan’s gaze. “The DSS will pull strings, talk to people, and try to get the videos taken down. We need to save them, even if we have to record the computer screen with our phones. Maybe even transcribe them. This is turning into something.”
Chayan tilted his head. “Did you think you could talk about change and a better life without people wanting that?”
“Yeah, but...”
He shook his head. “Ekko, I had a five-man team with a permanent assignment to remove any mention of you, your family and your stream from publicly accessible media.”
“You—what?”
“You are on the short list of dangerous Western influencers.”
“I...am?” Though Ekko had communicated with Chayan, they’d rarely spoken at length and even then it was mostly about getting him out of the country.
“Be it these phones or illegal internet hardware, kids are watching you. Daurian kids and young adults. They’re hearing you. And they’re unhappy with the way things are.”
She opened and closed her mouth.
“We need a plan,” Silas said. “It’s clear we didn’t have the full picture of how things were when all this started. Even now I’m not sure my boss realizes just how important the two of you are. I’m going to suggest something crazy...”
“Don’t stop now.” Ekko ran fingers through her hair. People were risking everything to watch her play video games and talk about life?
“We need to save these videos, but we also need to make our own,” Silas said and held up his hands. “Hear me out. We don’t know if we’ll make it to the UN in time.”
Chayan grimaced. “If we record statements they’ll live after us if we die.”
Dangerous Connections (Aegis Group Book 9) Page 15
