Walkaway

by Cory Doctorow

  “Come on,” Tam said. The refugees had stopped and news of the cave-in and the link for the recap spread. They were talking in clusters, looking at the sky as if vengeance might rain down. “As they say in the historical dramas, ‘shit just got real.’ If they get out of that hole, they’re coming for us. If they don’t get out of that hole, someone else is coming for us. We need to be gone.”

  Winter dark was coming on.

  “Where’s the cargo-train?”

  “Shit,” Tam said. “We haven’t even been able to tell you about that.”

  Once they had, everyone decided that they should head to the cargo-train. It had supplies and could carry the tired. Walkaways tried to travel light, but they weren’t masochists. If there was a machine that could be used to carry their load, so much the better.

  “I miss the B&B,” Limpopo said, and Seth felt deep unease, because Limpopo was the gold standard in rolling with the punches. “The mechas, the onsen. The toilets. I think that when we get out of this, we should build another one.”

  “Hell yeah,” Etcetera said. Seth realized how long it had been since they’d had a real sit-down, all-night, boozy chat, the kind they’d had so often as kids, as defaults. They both had girlfriends, but that wasn’t all. Etcetera was now serious in a good way, smart about stuff the way Limpopo was. Seth felt uncomfortable clowning with his old friend. But his old friend was a better person, energetic and not so self-doubting. He wore it well.

  “Hell yeah!” Seth pumped his fist. Etcetera and he locked eyes and the bond of friendship crackled between them and Tam reached for his hand, still keeping an arm around Kersplebedeb. In that moment Seth thought they could eat the world for breakfast and call for seconds. “Let’s go.”

  “Where, though?” Pocahontas had broken away from her group of younger people, standing before them and radiating confidence and youthfulness in a way that made Seth feel old and protective.

  “To the wagon,” he said.

  “And then?”

  He shrugged.

  Limpopo said, “I think we’ll figure it from there. Once we’ve got the wagon we’ll be more mobile. I’ve been checking other walkaways around and there’s plenty who might take us in, but everyone’s also worried they’ll be next.”

  “They should be,” Pocahontas said. “We’ve seen this playbook before. It’s Idle No More all over again.” The old First Nations protest movement gained momentum over a period of years, banking down to embers for months at a time, then exploding in fiery gouts of smart, savvy events that were so well-turned that even the totally pwned default media couldn’t ignore ’em. Idle became an international shorthand for effective revolt and street protesters from Warsaw to Port Au Prince to Caracas declared solidarity with it and used its iconography.

  Until, in a series of coordinated swoops, the RCMP, Canadian army, FBI, and CSIS simply scraped Idle off the planet. Every significant leader taken away in chains, except for the ones who died in gory shootouts, choreographed violence framed by slick logos and sinister arpeggios to accompany the tense standoff coverage that led the feeds. The trials that followed revealed a network of informants and double-dealers inside the movement. That left the sidelined supporters feeling like patsies for supporting a group that had, apparently, been led by double agents.

  In walkaway circles, Idle were still heroes. There were plenty of veterans living in walkaway. In the rest of the world, Idle had come to stand for the danger of discontent, an object lesson in how people who fought back couldn’t offer any alternative, were riddled with traitors and useful idiots, always and forever doomed before they started.

  “Sure feels like it,” Limpopo said. She’d been there when Idle and early walkaways were on the verge of merging. “Now you mention it.”

  Pocahontas said, “I think we should go to Dead Lake.”

  “Why? They don’t need more trouble.”

  Her snort of derision was epic. “They live in the bush, surrounded by air so toxic it can’t be breathed. Their neighbors are about to get napalmed. It doesn’t get worse.”

  Limpopo nodded. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, be smart. They know the area in a way that none of us do. They’re likely to be in the cops’ crosshairs, because they’re Idle vets and they hang out with us and they’re inconvenient witnesses. No one who mattered would give one single fuck if they were purged. They’re our friends and allies. We need those.”

  “I’m sold.” Kersplebedeb sounded more energetic, but he was still shaken. A chorus of voices on the short-range radio joined him.

  “Let’s go,” Pocahontas said, and Gretyl pointed her toward the cargo wagon.

  [xvii]

  Limpopo watched Jimmy fade. He’d lagged from the start, struggling with frostbitten toes in unwieldy snowshoes. He’d rallied when she took his pack and redistributed its contents among the group. Then he flagged again. She tapped his suit and opened a private channel.

  “We’ll put you on a travois, tow you.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You’re already towing those two fucking mercs and all this other shit. You don’t need to shlep me. Time’s wasting. I know where you’re headed. Just give me an extra battery and let me catch my breath, I’ll get to you in a day. If you move on, tell me where. I can look after myself.”

  “We’re not the marines, but I don’t like leaving anyone behind. Those assholes are down the pit for now, but there’ll be more along and there’s safety in numbers.”

  “No there isn’t.”

  She shrugged. “There’s some safety in numbers. We’re not defenseless.”

  “You’re also not particularly frightening.”

  “We’ve scared someone.” She slipped his arm over her shoulders, took his weight. “Let’s have this argument while we walk, or we’ll get separated from the main group.”

  “I’ve done really stupid things.” His voice was flat.

  “Welcome to the human race.”

  “What we did with the B&B—”

  “That was a giant dick move, all right.”

  “But the new one was even better, I hear.”

  “It was. Gone now, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “But the improvements got saved into the version-control. The next will be even better. Every complex ecosystem has parasites. Come on.” He’d slowed again, and his breath was rasping. Privately, Etcetera messaged to see if she needed help, and she pulled down a “go on, it’s okay” autoresponse with a flick of her eyes.

  “I think I need a rest.”

  “Let’s rest, then.” She dropped her pack, and helped him into the snow. He hissed in pain when she loosened his snowshoes.

  “That bad?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  “It’s bad.”

  “Better.”

  She felt anxiety about the group getting away. She knew this was the right thing to do. If they couldn’t all make it together, they sure as shit wouldn’t make it separately.

  “You know, I got recruited to turn traitor,” he said, after a long pause.

  “How’d that go?”

  “After the B&B collapsed—the original one, I mean. Guy met me on the road while I was heading for the US border. I thought I’d find these people who were bunkering with guns and canned goods, see if I couldn’t get them to bug in and save other people, instead of bugging out to save themselves. I’d heard about places where there were drug-runners’ tunnels you could slip through.

  “I was on the road, three days. I’d set up a pop-shelter and was getting dinner on, scop out of a fab, when a woman turned up in my camp. Quiet as a ninja, dressed in tacticals, little sidearm I didn’t recognize on her hip. She invited herself over, squatted down next to my stove, warmed her hands. Looked me in the eye, said, ‘Jimmy, you seem like a smart guy.’ Which was funny. I’d fucked up on a colossal scale, taken something beautiful and turned it to shit by trying to impose my ide
as on it.

  “I get smart-assy when I’m stinging, so I said something like, ‘You should get out more, if I’m your idea of a smart guy.’

  “She laughed and unclipped a squeeze flask. I smelled that it was good Scotch, Islay, smoky. She drank, passed it. It was good. ‘You had the right idea, but didn’t have a chance with that place. Too many fifth columnists working to undermine you. I was inside their network from day one, watching them closely, and I could show you chapter and verse how they fucked you. They say there are no leaders, but if you dig into it, it’s easy to see what Limpopo says, goes. She doesn’t give orders, but she sure as shit gets people to do what she wants. But you know that.’”

  “What did they offer you?” Limpopo felt strangely flattered to learn she was subjected to this kind of scrutiny.

  “Money at first, but I could tell she knew that wasn’t what I wanted. Then she offered me oppo research and support for getting back at you, which was the clincher for me.”

  “You took her up on it?” This was beyond any confession she’d anticipated. She didn’t know whether to respect him for making it or smack him for his sins.

  He laughed bitterly. “Are you fucking kidding me? You know the joke: ‘I’m here because I’m crazy, not because I’m an asshole.’ By the time the B&B collapsed under me—after getting into a fistfight with a guy I thought was my best friend!—I figured out whatever problems I had were my own, especially since your new B&B was running fine a couple klicks down the road. It was an incontrovertible A/B split. The idea I would try it again, using this asshole merc’s intel to try and fuck you? I was an asshole, but at least I knew if it came down to a fight between this fucker and you, I’d be on your side.”

  “I don’t fight, though.” She wondered if he was bullshitting her.

  “You walk away.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You seriously, totally walk away.” He looked at the receding backs of the column, tried to lever himself up, grunted, sank down. “You’d better go on.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Yeah, well.” He laughed. She peered through his visor. He had a lightyears-away look. “When you walked away from the B&B, I mean.” He laughed again. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “It was beautiful. I was so pissed at you then, felt like the world’s biggest asshole. You could not have ruined me more if you’d curb-stomped me. I never recovered.” Raspy breath. “Never recovered. I’d arrived with my gang, you saw them, boys who thought the sun shone out of my ass, completely bought into meritocracy, not just as a way of figuring out who got what, but as a way of solving all our problems.” Another faraway look.

  “I don’t think you got that. My guys looked at the world like Plato, you know, The Republic. Every person has something he’s good at. You find those things and help those people get there and that makes everyone happy and productive and we’ll all be better. You don’t need to order people to do jobs they hate. Just use ranking to make sure that if you’re doing a job you’re no good at, everyone knows it, including you. You get a smaller share of the collective loot than you would if you were doing something you were better at.

  “Once you get hold of this idea, you can turn it into math, model its game-theory, find its Nash equilibrium. It’s such a beautiful idea. It models perfectly. Under it, everyone is happier. Everyone gets nudged into doing the thing they’re best at, which is the best way to make everyone happy.

  “When you walked away, when you didn’t even argue, you made it into bullshit. For weeks, we pretended it wasn’t. But you’d had a place were everyone took what they needed. You didn’t need to police it or give people tokens certifying they’d earned the right to be there. It just … worked.”

  Limpopo adjusted her crouch in the snow, flopped onto her butt. Her calves ached from crouching. “Whoops!” She brushed the snow that showered from her snowshoes off her visor. “The stuff you’re describing, it’s the kind of thing people do in emergencies, when there’s rationing. It’s like the rules for a lifeboat captain, you know, barking orders to keep everyone in line so everyone gets out of it alive.”

  “It’s funny: back when no one was sending tanks after me, I felt we were in a state of emergency. There was not enough to go around, at any moment we could be nuked or starving. Now I feel as soon as we find somewhere to stop, we’ll rebuild everything we’ve had and more. Like there’s no reason to ever turn anyone away.”

  “Sounds like you got somewhere good.” She welled with sympathy for Jimmy, which was funny. Maybe not. She understood him better than he did. Under other circumstances, she could be him.

  “I have. That’s weird, objectively, given where I am. But I’m backed up. I feel this incredible feeling, it’ll all be all right. We’re going to win, Limpopo.”

  Someone trudged through the snow. Etcetera. She waved at him, blinked open a private chat. “It’s okay.”

  “Good. Can I come over?”

  “Course,” she said.

  “He seems like a good guy,” Jimmy said.

  “Glad you approve.”

  “Didn’t mean it that way, but I do. He came back for you, which is what you’re supposed to do, if you’re looking out for people around you.”

  “Like I came back for you.”

  “Like you did. Not to rescue me. To take care of me because we’re part of the same thing.”

  She bridged in Etcetera. “Jimmy, you’ve come a long way since we met, but you’re still coming along, if you don’t mind my saying. I came back to help you because helping people is what you do, whether or not they’re in your thing, because that’s the best world to live in.”

  “First days of a better nation,” he said, with a little sarcasm.

  “It’s only funny because it’s true,” Etcetera said, taking her hand.

  “We make fun of it, but it’s the best way I know to live. I don’t always live up to it. You get a radar for it, if you practice. A Jiminy Cricket voice tells you if you make a bit of effort, you’ll feel better for it, know the world is a better place for you being in it.”

  “I misspoke,” Jimmy said. She felt bad because they’d lectured him and the poor guy was about to lose his toes if he didn’t get firebombed first. But he hadn’t misspoken.

  “It’s okay.”

  Etcetera popped his visor, head wreathed in steam, rooted for a squeeziepouch of scop. “Want some? It’s spacie food, weird flavors. The rabbit is really good. For a cultured fungal slime.”

  “You really sell it.” Limpopo remembered she had some shake-and-heat coffiums in her pack. She got those out and they sat around in the snow and ate, looking at each others’ bare faces while the wind did its best to blast off their skin. It rattled the branches. The sun was low on the horizon, a bloody plum running to overripe mush.

  “We’d better get a move on,” Jimmy said.

  “Good to go?”

  “Good as I’ll ever be. Rest did me good. Food, too.” He clicked his visor into place. “Company, too.”

  She gave his shoulder a squeeze and helped get his feet into his snowshoes, taking care with the injured one. They got him to his feet, got shoed, and they set off after the column.

  They moved slowly but well, at a steady clip. After a few minutes, Dis called. “You three okay?”

  Limpopo said, “Just moving a little slower than the rest.”

  “They’re a klick and a half ahead, almost at the cargo-train. Gretyl says if they can get it moving, they’ll come back for you.”

  “That’s nice of them. What’s going on there?”

  “Oh,” Dis said. There was something funny going on. “Oh, well, it’s not good.”

  “Shit.”

  “Lots of them, all at once. Blew three airlocks simultaneously. They’re hup-hup-hupping around the hallways in nightscopes. They gassed the place, not sure what with, but they’re wearing breathers and skin protection.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve got my backups. Ready to wipe when and if. Whe
n. These kids aren’t playing.”

  “Dis—” Etcetera’s voice cracked.

  “Get used to it. This one’s for all the marbles. Immortality or bust.” Then: “Oh.”

  “What’s going on, Dis?”

  “They’re not happy at all that everyone’s gone. Smashing the crockery. They’re breaching the hull, a lot.”

  “What about your cluster?”

  “Underground. They have a couple dudes down in utility spaces but they’re trying to root everything and looking for tripwires. They’re not stupid. Making good progress. Maybe an hour?”

  “And your power?”

  “Independent backup. Shit, they’re doing the comm links. There, just emailed another diff. We probably won’t have much longer—”

  Then it was silent.

  “Fuckers,” Etcetera said, with feeling.

  “First days of a better nation,” Jimmy said. “If you could see them now, what would you say to them?” His feet crunched irregularly through the snow. Limpopo could tell that he was stung by what she’d said.

  “If they were trying to kill me, I’d say don’t shoot. I’m an idealist, not a kamikaze.”

  “Fair point. What if you had them at a table?”

  “I wouldn’t say anything. I’d offer them dinner. Or I’d just go about doing what I do. I’m an idealist, not a preacher.”

  “I get it.”

  “What made you walk away, Jimmy?”

  Crunch, crunch. “It was debt at first. My parents went into deep hock to get me through high school, and I busted my ass with everyone else. I knew they were spending huge, but I didn’t think about what that meant until I was graduating and we started talking college. I knew that I wasn’t going to go away anywhere, we weren’t zottas, but everyone in my fancy school was going to go to do a roll-your-own, everyone thinking about their star course, the one they’d take from an Ivy or a Big Ten, cornerstone of their degree, lead their employment profiles when they graduated.

  “I did it, too. I had this idea I’d go into materials engineering, because I’d liked my science classes okay, and there was this stupid app they made you wear for the last two years of school that was supposed to predict your optimal career. It got this huge push from the administration, like religion for them. They could only keep their charter if they ran a certain percentage of students through it and they followed its advice. So once you got your career picked by the thing, that was it. Every teacher and administrator knew their paychecks depended on you doing what it told you.