Firebreak

by Nicole Kornher-Stace

  Footage of the mech blasting a crater in the sidewalk at my front door. Looking directly at me. Making sure I’m paying attention. “This thing might as well have drawn a finger across its throat and pointed at me. Threatening a free customer-citizen because a megacorporation doesn’t like her little internet video is not a good look. They want my attention? They’ve got it. Fully.”

  Dimly I wonder at what point I’ll have crossed the line that galvanizes them to stop messing around trying to hammer that irritating nail back down and send some SecOps pliers instead to remove it permanently. I wonder if 06 and 22 will remember me. Whether they’ll refuse the order and side with me against their oppressors. It’s a nice daydream anyway.

  “This is old town.” I’m walking out the hotel door now and into the street, streaming. I posted Jessa’s mech video half an hour ago with instructions to stay tuned to our channel and a reminder that if no new content appears by noon, something’s happened. I can only hope that the company is taking me seriously enough to worry about martyring me to an exposé of their practices. If people didn’t believe me before, they probably will then. Enough of them, anyway.

  “I live here,” I narrate quietly. Jessa and a few of the others walk with me for protection, and I’ve got a scarf pulled up over my lower face so you can’t from a distance see that I’m talking. My taser’s living in my pocket now. I don’t see that changing soon. “Maybe you didn’t believe me when I posted that video yesterday. Well, Stellaxis clearly did.” Footage of the cratered sidewalk outside the hotel. Footage of the smashed-in movie theater. Footage of bloodstains in the street, of the scattering of plastic cups and bottles, of the multicolored splatter on the street where they hit the shields and liquefied. “I wonder what they’re so afraid of. All I did was make an honest video. Do they have something to hide?”

  I narrate everything I look at. I give as much detail as I can. I encourage people to go find those other videos and share those, too. Make it obvious this isn’t just some pet delusion of mine, some kind of ploy for attention. It’s real. And it could be anybody else’s town next.

  I post that video and pace up and down the stairs to keep a drain on my nervous energy. Then I remember I haven’t gotten a chance to check out the stuff our sponsors have given us for yesterday’s video, so I sit in the stairwell to take a real quick look at that before I start moving again.

  There’s a lot. A few hundred dollars in combined cash and company-store credits, almost five gallons of water, and a massive pile of game items that I can sell on the market for cash, which I can use to buy water. Overpriced company-store water, from a corporation I’m much more inclined to boycott entirely, but I don’t exactly have the luxury of being picky. I can’t very well fight them if my kidneys give out.

  I swipe the water and money to their respective accounts and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s funny, really. Jessa and I used to dream of streaming game sessions full-time, making enough to live off. But that’d put us in the top maybe zero-point-zero-zero-one percent of gamers at a generous estimate. Rarified air for sure. And now here we are. Finally able to live off our streaming income. At least for a while. And for all the wrong reasons.

  I get fidgety, so I go downstairs thinking I’ll buy some water, but Comforts of Home is like a war zone itself. Where there used to be a giant pyramidal display of water bottles, there’s now the smashed remains of several on the floor and armed guards breaking up brawls when people try to grab water bottles out of each other’s hands and shopping baskets. There are people filling their ration cups and bottles with soda instead, as, compared to water, it’s practically free. People swiping thumb interfaces at each other in the middle of the store, buying water off each other’s accounts, haggling loudly.

  Not ten seconds after I start streaming, a full-on display-crashing fight starts in the checkout line, complete with people physically throwing their bodies on the bottles as they roll away across the floor.

  I keep my distance. At least I have that extra water in my account. Those five gallons will keep the nine of us healthy for another couple of days or so. As awkward and shitty as it feels to just stand here and watch this play out, I hang back and run the stream.

  One time I saw a newsfeed where some immaculately made-up reporter went to the aftermath of Hurricane Astrid and cabled down from a helicopter to talk to some people stranded on the roof of their drowned house and baking in the sun. They’d been there for four days, out of water for two, and at least one of these people was visibly dying. The reporter might’ve offered them water after the segment was filmed, I don’t know. All I know is that she shoved a drone camera into their faces and asked when they hoped to be rescued. And that when she left, it wasn’t with any of them in her helicopter. Or any of the people on any of the other rooftops either.

  I wonder if someone made her do that. Document and flee. Leave no trace. I remember thinking at the time I could never do what she did. That I could never be that callous. I’m trying to convince myself that what I’m doing now is different. There’s nothing I can do for these people. Not in the short term. Even if I had enough money to buy water for everyone in this store right now, there’s no water left to buy. Even if I split up my water account between them, they’d each get a few ounces at most, and the borrowed time I add to their tallies is borrowed time I take from the eight people for whom I’m directly the fuck co-responsible.

  Stellaxis did this, I remind myself.

  But right on the heels of that is: Stellaxis did this because of me.

  Still, if it wasn’t me, it would’ve been somebody else eventually. Somebody who exposed something the company didn’t want seen. I didn’t do anything special. There’s nothing about me that’s particularly threatening to their status quo. I was in the right place at the right time. That’s all.

  And because they decided to bring this fight to me, I’m in the right place at the right time now, too. All I can do is make the most of it. Make sure people see and understand. Here but for the grace of corporate goodwill goes every one of you.

  I stand there and stream until a guard sees me loitering and shoos me away. At the last second she seems to realize who she’s yelling at—I’m sure they all know damn well who I am—but then a couple of women pelt past her holding a shopping bag full of someone else’s bottles, and she backpedals out of my face fast to pursue them.

  Stupid to push my luck further here. Still, on my way out I risk a glance up the hall toward the water-storage room, still streaming. Allie was right, there are six guards there. Holding the guns like the safeties aren’t going back on again until all this is quashed. Panning over all of us with their eyes. I don’t doubt for a second that they’re sending surveillance footage back to HQ. I imagine someone in a business suit sitting in a room full of screens, parsing this, writing up a progress report. Intimidation tactics met with widespread success.

  Still, the guards themselves are quietly watchful. Like this whole place has been doused with gasoline and they’re biding their time until one of us shows up with a match.

  They’ve projected a shield over the door. No way to know what kind it is until someone touches it. I have a feeling it’s set to something stronger than repel.

  I hurry off before they take note of me. Which I realize is stupid: of course they have. This whole thing has been staged for my benefit. Mine, and anyone else’s who gets similar ideas.

  Someone runs out of Comforts of Home, sobbing. The guards twitch to attention, and I use the distraction to cross the hall out of their line of sight. In the lobby I notice Suresh and Tegan talking quietly to three or four people over in a corner. They’re all holding massive sodas and leaning against the walls fake-casual, like they’re gossiping about some celebrity or discussing something that happened in a game, but I know it’s an act. Tegan and Suresh are putting into action what we all decided on last night after Jessa and I returned from the stairwell. Elsewhere, Keisha and Jackson and Allie and Ryan and Jessa are too
.

  They’re spreading the word about the protest. This Saturday, the tenth of April, we all take to the streets together. Us and anyone who’ll join us. In old town and elsewhere. We stand together and we stream together and we ram the entire internet down Stellaxis’s throat.

  Tell everyone, they’ll be saying. Online and in person. Make flyers. Whatever. But remember: no violence. This part I was very clear on. It doesn’t make much sense to try to free 06 and 22 from systematic cruelty, and avenge the deaths of the others, if we’re just going to add more dead to the heap. Any violence that occurs, I want it to be company violence, not ours. Company violence that we can broadcast to the world. We so much as break a window, that’s the way the story gets spun. We’ve seen enough newsfeeds to know that.

  Not for the first time the thought strikes me: Okay, what then? The rest of the world might have enough consumer clout and corporate regulations and whatever to bring Stellaxis down, but… what does that mean for us? Best-case scenario, Stellaxis is done. Would we be better off under Greenleaf?

  Say 06 and 22 get released from company control. Say the war ends and they walk out of those glass doors free. Are they going to move into old town just to work four jobs and live in a room with eight people and end up in the rehydration clinics with the rest of us?

  Is there an answer here? Or has this, all of this, gone on too long for anyone to even be able to conceptualize an alternative?

  Tegan catches my eye and knows better than to nod, just lets their gaze slide off mine and laughs too loudly at something that even from my distance looks cued.

  One of the strangers turns and leaves in one direction. Then another leaves going a different way. Followed by the other two. One goes for the elevator, one for the stairs, two out into the street through separate doors with a half-minute delay between them.

  Them gone, I glance back and notice what was obscured before. Or who. Talya is there with them, hanging back mostly behind Tegan, looking deeply conflicted, but there.

  It’s more than I expected.

  dude. did you look at the video you just posted

  no, I send. been trying to avoid it actually

  well stop avoiding it

  Jessa wouldn’t fuck with me. Not about this, anyway. I climb the stairs to our room.

  She’s already there, beside herself with what looks like at least three separate emotions at once. “Post another one,” she says. “About the protest. Right now.”

  I dodge around her toward the coffeepot. I can’t afford to use much water, obviously, but I have a feeling I’m going to need caffeine to help me get through whatever she wants me to see. “Everybody’s downstairs right now spreading the word,” I say, scooping grounds. “It’s gone beyond me now. Water-line cutoffs, that’s what’ll get people’s attention. Numbers. Reach. Widespread awareness.”

  “Nonono. You don’t understand. Look.”

  She’s got the video up on the pocket screen. She holds it in my face and starts slowly scrolling through the comments. There’s the usual trolling garbage, of course, but this time it’s practically drowned out by this tidal wave of… support.

  They took your water? That’s fucked up.

  your whole town’s water lines got cut off because of some video?

  that fucking mech looked right at you, no way is that not a threat, you’ve got them dead to rights

  share this everywhere, people, they can’t get away with this, blow it up

  Anybody know what we can do about this?

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “Okay.” I take the screen from her, heft it thoughtfully in my hands like I’m going to uptake inspiration directly through my anxious-sweating palms.

  That’s when I see something else. A kind of comment I’ve never seen before.

  Solidarity from Mexico City.

  Love from Cairo.

  Auckland stands with you.

  Then I put it down. I pull up our streaming account and send out a notification to our subscribers that I’ll be starting a new stream in five minutes.

  There are millions of them these days and more subscribing by the tens of thousands every time I check. Whether they believed my videos or not, apparently they were at least entertaining enough for the audience to want to keep me around. Right now that’s fine by me.

  It doesn’t take long for them to start showing up. The active-viewers icon climbs. When it’s nearly been five minutes, there are one-point-one million of them gathered.

  That’s when I start to lose my nerve.

  “Jessa, I can’t even present a game stream to our regular audience without a script. I can’t, what, rally people to—”

  “Just tell them,” Jessa says gently. “This coming Saturday. April tenth. The same stuff we agreed on for everyone else. Hell, it might even be better if it doesn’t sound super polished. Let it look like we’re hurting here. It’s not like we’d be lying. We have water for a few more days, max. We need backup. Badly.” She shrugs. “Just be honest.”

  I think for a minute. Then I turn on all the lights, stand in front of the bathroom mirror, and start streaming.

  “They took our water,” I say without preamble. “There are nine of us living in this room, and we pooled together what little we have left. It won’t last much longer. Other rooms, other buildings probably have even less. Some might have already run out. We were at least lucky enough that our housing lottery landed us in a building with a roof. The camps are probably way worse off than this. They say we can buy water at the company store, but it’s a dollar an ounce, and nobody in old town can afford to live on that. They know this, of course. This is a power play. It’s time to show them that they’re not holding all the cards. They can’t push us over if we all stand together. Join us this Saturday, April tenth, and do whatever you can, wherever you can, to show them that they can’t keep hiding. They hid what they did to the operatives. They’re trying to hide what they did here. Stand with us and say with us: We see you. We—”

  The feed cuts out. Not just the feed but my lenses. Not just the lenses but my implant. I can’t even pull up the time and temperature, the safety alert dashboard. Nothing.

  The fuckers locked me out.

  Not just from our channel. Not just from the game. From everything. My cash. My company credit. My gallons I never got a chance to preload to the room. My pile of game items to sell. My entire actual water account. All of it.

  It’s gone.

  “Oh hell no,” Jessa says. Her eyes are like spotlights. “They didn’t just—”

  I take my lenses out, top up their interface fluid, put them back in. To predictable effect. Whatever shock I feel is distant, dulled, a detonation heard from far off. It’s been a long time coming.

  “This is stupid, though. You disappear, then everybody knows the company’s trying to shut you up. They could’ve thrown you into jail and sent the same message. Or killed you!” Jessa’s pacing now, shaking her head like she can dislodge the calamity that’s landed on her. “Well, fuck that.” She stops and stares at the wall, obviously pulling something up on her lenses. “I was too scared to do this yesterday, but that ship has fucking sailed. I’m going to share this into oblivion. I’m going to make so much fucking noise that they’re going to have to cut me into pieces and mail each piece to an individual soundproofed room on separate continents to shut me up. They’re—”

  She stops like someone’s pulled her plug. At first I think they locked her out too. But no. She’s staring at something. Staring at something that’s turned her face the approximate color of wet cement. She staggers back until the insides of her knees hit the nearest bunk, then sits. One hand comes up to cover her mouth.

  “Dude,” I say, because I have an immediate sinking feeling that somehow, whatever she’s looking at is the latest landmark blown past by the runaway train that is our week, and I have to say something stupid to keep from careening off the tracks entirely, “you look like you’re reading your own obituary.”

 
; With visible effort she draws me into focus. Her panicked stare isn’t exactly less unsettling when it’s aimed right at my face. If she’s ever looked this shaken, I haven’t seen it.

  “I think,” she says slowly, “I’m watching yours.”

  0016

  SHE GESTURES WHATEVER IT IS OVER TO the wall screen, then points at me with shaking hands. “Sit,” she says, her voice cracking. “Sit down.”

  I sit, and I face the screen.

  What’s on it is—me.

  Or something like me. Something close enough to pass as me. Something that is to me what the in-game version of 22 is to the real one.

  It’s a video.

  “Restart,” Jessa tells the wall screen. “Pause.” Looks at me. Waits for me to nod the go-ahead. Seconds tick by before I can. Whatever this is, it’s really, really bad.

  “Play,” I whisper.

  It takes a moment to realize why the screen ignores me. I’m locked out. At literally any other time, this would be enough to make me comprehensively lose my shit. But right now I’ve got bigger problems.

  “Play,” Jessa tells the screen, and it does.

  “My name is Mallory,” says the not-me thing on the wall. “You may know me as my BestLife avatar Nycorix, or from videos like this.” Cut to a clip of 06 and 22 fighting the mech in my first video, which cuts in turn to a clip of a girl throwing a soda bottle at an armed guard in the one Jessa took. “Gaming and protesting’s been fun, guys, but I’m over that now. Wait until you see what I have in store for you next.”

  “Pause,” I croak. It feels like someone’s throat-punched me. Hard to catch my breath. Jessa pauses. I stare at the thing with my face, now in freeze-frame, smiling coyly. “The fuck is this.”

  “I think it’s like…” Jessa trails off, fishing for words. “A composite video? Some kind of actor-dies-while-they’re-still-filming-the-movie deepfake shit?”