Failed State

by Christopher Brown

  The guy was flashing some kind of ID. The law-enforcement kind, with one of those hologram badges that seems to flicker in the light like a handheld semaphore.

  Donny pretended not to see or hear them. He ducked into the stairwell marked fire exit, and ditched them. He had seen a couple of Dallas County deputies pop through that door the month before, and was relieved the alarm was still busted—another piece of broken government infrastructure that would probably never be repaired, just like the surveillance cameras that still hung from all the streetlamps even though their network connection had been severed at the hub.

  He didn’t know what the Eurocops wanted, but it probably wasn’t good, and he definitely didn’t have time for it. The sound of his beat-up wingtips echoing off the old concrete floors as he found his way to the street made him feel like a fugitive.

  The feeling was unexpectedly liberating.

  3

  Donny’s Dallas office was halfway between the courthouse and the jail, in a beat-up old strip mall that also housed a combination liquor store and secondhand electronics shop. Donny had taken down the big “Law Office” sign he’d inherited from the prior tenant, a local criminal-defense lawyer who got tired of losing to the government and retired early to Costa Rica, so now the front of the building was dominated by the sign for the business next door, the name crazy river in big, red, illuminated caps. The name was not as crazy as it sounded, because right there on the other side of the jail flowed the Trinity, which had always been a crazy river, even crazier now than it used to be, no matter how hard the town fathers worked to tame it.

  Right behind the building was another sort of river, the overpass where Interstate 35 passed downtown on its route between Laredo and Duluth. Behind that was Dealey Plaza, in the shadows of the dome-topped Reunion Tower and the rest of the Dallas skyline. Dallas was the town that proudly invented the triple underpass, a city where the freeways came first. The high-rises where the freeways pretended to end were the sort that worked hard to fake you, pretending to be the beacons of a promising and prosperous future while they helped to hide the relics of a more complicated past, and pushed the poverty and repression of the present into their shadows. Like the shanties people had built up along the riverbanks, hidden from view by the levees and the jails.

  The traffic on the overpass above Donny’s office was not what it had been, now that driving your own car was a retro luxury, and the conflicts with Mexico had eliminated most of the Texas truck traffic. But it was still loud. It didn’t stop the guy zonked out at Donny’s door from sleeping his way through the lunch hour. So Donny decided to let him be, and entered through the back.

  The radio was on inside when he opened the door. That alarmed him, until he remembered he had left it on the last time he was up here a few weeks earlier, on the advice of a burglar client who told him that’s a good cheap substitute for an alarm. One of the fortunate by-products of the government collapse was that the media controls had collapsed along with it, and now you could tune the dial to any number of eclectic stations operated by microbudgeted indies trying to make a meager buck in the ruins. This one was an alt-classical program, at that moment playing some raging bummer of a baroque guitar solo that sounded like an old man remembering the plague. Donny went to turn it off, but then decided it suited his mood.

  He grabbed the pile of mail that had accumulated where the slat dumped it just inside the front door, and took it to his desk. It was junk mail, mostly, the kind of stuff it was hard to believe people still wasted the postage on. Flyers for lawyer seminars on topics like habeas corpus after dictatorship, conflicts of law in times of interstate military conflict, and federalism under the new Constitution that still only existed in draft form—several different drafts, depending on which faction you talked to. There were three of those mailers offering preapproved ways to get out of debt by getting into more debt, two garish pamphlets for antiaging nutritional supplements, and one solicitation from the North Texas Gun Club that came with a stack of return address labels preprinted with Donny’s name and business address and a little icon of a black-powder rifle. Donny saved the window sticker, which was one of those things meant to signal some fraternal code to any officer of the law that might pull you over. If only he had a car to put it on.

  He sorted the pile there on his already-messy desk, tossing the junk mail to the floor after inspecting whatever looked interesting, and making a new chronological stack of what looked like actual business correspondence. And there at the bottom of that pile, earliest to have been received, was the fine white envelope printed with the letterhead of Polson & Chevalier.

  “Suggestion of Death.” That about captured how Donny felt as he read it again, and realized how majorly he had fucked up by not having all notices and pleadings sent to his Houston office, which was the one where he actually worked most days, even though his cases were all over the state and sometimes across the country. This office was just a cheap sublet from the prior tenant, who owed Donny for agreeing to take on his cases after he decided to throw in the towel. Donny used it mainly to meet with those clients, and most of those cases had now run their course. This one was his last big one, and the one that would pay his ticket to never have to come to Dallas again. Or that was the idea.

  Abogado Harry Martinez Jr. had left Donny his library as well. It was meager, a couple of shelves of basic books, but it did include a current copy of the Rules of Civil Procedure. It was sitting there under a gift-shop bust of Socrates, the inventor of mansplaining. Donny pulled that, and reread the rule about what happens when your fucking client gets himself killed and your last chance at real justice and the retirement money you have been busting your ass to make dies with him. You had to read between the lines to get it, but the part that mattered was as clear as anything in the law ever got.

  Donny searched his electronic inbox, and confirmed he had received the same notice there, even earlier. How he missed that was only partly explained by the even larger volume of unread inbounds that showed up in the queue. Donny wasn’t the kind of lawyer who could afford a secretary. And working in a system that had long been broken, he had learned to focus on what seemed to really matter for the clients. Sometimes at their expense, and more often at his own.

  The most surprising thing about the news that Slider was dead, before the age of twenty-five, was how little it surprised Donny. The kid was a battle-hardened revolutionary who had processed his anger over what happened to his parents by taking up arms against the state. And he had been an effective one, a wannabe Robin Hood whose actions during the resistance and uprising got their share of public attention. He also earned more than his share of enemies, even among his supposed comrades. That was something he and Donny had in common. But more than anything, Slider was a risk-taker, reckless with his own life, and the idea that he had lost it on the job was entirely plausible. So much so that Donny had considered the risk when he first put the case together, convincing himself that he would quickly be able to identify other disappeareds and build up his class action to insure against that risk.

  That calculation had not factored in Donny’s failure to adhere to basic business hygiene like checking your mail and keeping up your docket. He had let a simple delaying strategy by the defense ripen into a fatal trap. He had a week to try to come up with a way to slash his way out, but there was no obvious way to do it. It would have to start with trying to find the full story.

  He grabbed his bag and found his Swissfōn, the mobile device he had to keep in his briefcase because it was too big for his pockets. The phone he’d had to get one of his former clients to help him sneak into the country, a baggage handler in Houston whom Donny had helped get a commutation for a crate of more lethal contraband he had leapfrogged past customs. They claimed the official surveillance was a thing of the past, and the phone was legal now, and could even be registered with the network without having to pay way too much to a crazy ex-BellNet guy to mask it behind an alias. Now and before, it
was designed to be surveillance-free, protected by military-grade encryption, active countermeasures, and guaranteed no back doors. It was also, as a consequence, huge and ugly. The first time his grandma saw him pull it out when he visited her, she busted a gut, and made a crack about shoe phones.

  The shoe phone had saved his ass more than a few times over the past few years, and he was not going to give it up that easily. Maybe it could save his ass again.

  The number he needed to call was one of the first ones he had programmed into it—the number for one of his oldest clients, which was really an alias for whatever forwarded line she was using at the time.

  Xelina wasn’t there, and the message he left was brief.

  It’s Donny. Call me. It’s about Slider.

  He had an urge to call Slider, just to shake his last bit of disbelief, but Slider didn’t do phones when he was alive. Said they were the ultimate tracers. Even the blackphones like Donny had.

  He went online, looking for news about the events Karen had described in her ambush that morning. It took him a while to figure out where and how to find it. Information channels were tricky in those days. Through platform standards and censorship both soft and hard, the prior regime had mostly managed to turn the media into several hundred versions of the same channel, most of it propaganda, even when it was propaganda disguised as sports, or sitcoms, or nature shows. When it died, the atrophied remains of what had once been a vigorous free press had trouble filling the vacuum. Especially since they no longer had a viable way to pay the bills. Most of the myriad factions pushing their agendas for what the new regime should look like had media organs they used to spin their take, and there were a handful of wire services that still cobbled together updates. Beyond that, it was like the radio stations—a lot of irregularly programmed and often eccentric perspectives. So mostly you had to go to the foreign sources for the real news, assuming you could cough up the digital snowflakes to get through the paywall.

  What was most annoying to Donny was that, when he finally found a solid recap of the story Karen had spun, it was on Detention Watch. No wonder Sarah had shown up. She already knew.

  Heiress Arrested by New Orleans Justice Tribunal

  Casualties on Both Sides as Firefight Precedes Extraterritorial Seizure

  Dallas, Feb. 3—Texas heiress Heather Hamilton-Green was seized tonight from her family home by paramilitary deputies of the Free City of New Orleans, who claim Hamilton-Green and HG Enterprises are responsible for damage to the environment there and must be prosecuted before their new truth and reconciliation tribunal. This is the third such arrest by agents of the People’s Council of persons residing outside of their jurisdiction, in states that do not recognize their legal authority, and the first such arrest in which the deputies faced armed resistance. It follows a series of burglaries from corporate offices around the region, including at HG affiliates Promethean Resources and Tripto Labs. Three are reported dead.

  The raid occurred in the predawn hours in the Highland Park neighborhood. The deputies managed to breach the security of the family compound where Hamilton-Green, an investor and activist, was staying for the holidays. Private security forces in the family’s employ were caught off guard, but managed to put up a fight. One of the deputies was killed, along with two of the guards, but the mission was successful and Hamilton-Green is now reported to be in custody in New Orleans.

  Since the signing of the Interstate Compact for the Cessation of Hostilities, New Orleans has been occupied by the demilitarized remnants of the Popular Front, the guerrilla band that originally formed during the federal occupation of the city under the Mack regime, and later coalesced into one of the forces that led the uprising that ultimately removed President Mack from power. The Compact gave New Orleans a measure of independent governance that has allowed it to serve as a foothold for efforts to undo some of the strictures of the Compact, and last fall the government there established a new truth and reconciliation tribunal for the declared purpose of holding accountable “not just the current generation of criminals and klepts, but all the generations that came before them and stole the fortunes their heirs are now hoarding.” The arrests are among the first judicial acts of this new body, which has announced its plans to begin its first trials as soon as April.

  The family of Ms. Hamilton-Green could not be reached for comment.

  Donny was pretty sure he could reach the family of Ms. Hamilton-Green, because he knew them. Her father, Lou, had been one of Donny’s closest friends, a former colleague who had stayed on to become a star partner at the firm where they both started their careers. Politics got in the way of their friendship, as it began to take over their lives, each of them on opposite sides of the conflict that consumed the country.

  Donny knew the daughter too. Not as well. But the things he knew about her made the pieces of the story that was now coming together seem incongruous.

  Donny went to find the documents Karen had proffered that morning, but was interrupted by a loud knock on his front door. He got up, expecting to see the guy who had been sleeping there.

  Instead, he found the detectives who had been hounding him outside the courtroom that morning.

  4

  “Can I help you?” said Donny.

  “I’m Inspector Blonk,” said the guy, holding up his badge. When the light hit it, you could see the lenticular of the agency logo layered over the identifying info, a ring of stars in a blue field with a tiny map of the world. “This is Deputy Commissioner Abboud. We are with Interpol.”

  Donny looked up at the guy when he said that. Blonk was tall, a few sizes taller than Donny, more than a few years younger, and a good bit whiter. His English was almost perfect, but you could hear the waffles in the vowels.

  “Interpol?” said Donny. “Does that even still exist?”

  Donny didn’t leave the country much. For most of the last decade, it had been illegal to do so without a special visa.

  “Oh, yes,” said Deputy Commissioner Abboud, in crisp but French-accented English. She was shorter than Donny, and darker. Closer to Donny’s age, with the years in her eyes. “More than ever.”

  “We would like to ask you some questions,” said Inspector Blonk.

  “About what?” said Donny. He looked at his watch, as if he had somewhere to go.

  “We are detailed to the UN Office of the Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial Executions,” said Blonk.

  “The what?”

  “We investigate war crimes,” said Abboud.

  “Excellent,” said Donny, realizing how much he meant that, excited and relieved at the possibility of some help with his case from real investigators with real resources. “Come on in.”

  He took them to the conference room. It was small and messy, but not as messy as his office. He grabbed the files he had spread out on the table and set them atop one of the stacks of file boxes along the wall. There was one piece of art hanging there, a black-and-white photo of a man in nineteenth-century clothing standing by a wooden bridge with a big hammer in his hands and a funny-looking cowboy hat on his head.

  “That is Victor Considerant,” said Abboud, pointing at the photo. “The Frenchman.”

  “How did you know?”

  “There was a little exhibit about him in the hotel. Very interesting bit of local history.”

  “He was on to something,” said Donny. “Some days I like to imagine if the Dallas he had tried to build had become real.”

  “It was real, for a while, from what I read,” said Abboud.

  “Not for long,” said Donny. “Dallas is about as far from a socialist utopia as you can get.”

  “Yes, well, utopia does not exist,” said Abboud. “Because people are thieves at heart. Or you and we would not be able to make a living.”

  “They’re making a pretty good run at it in New Orleans,” said Donny.

  “You think so?” said Abboud. “They may be good at the rewilding, but their justice system is a step backwards if
you ask me.”

  “That’s partly my fault. I used to work with them, and helped them come up with the basic outline for their new code. But we had a falling-out, and they took it in their own direction.”

  “They share your American proclivity for violence, and that will be their undoing, just as it was for the prior regime.”

  “You may be right,” said Donny. “And I assume the violence of the prior regime is why you were in the courtroom today. If you are looking for some of the information I have pulled together about these atrocities, I’d love to share it with you, and I bet you have some information I don’t. With your investigative resources, we could really up our game, maybe even expand the scope.”

  They looked at the boxes piled up around the room, all labeled in black marker with the name of the case, the year in which the files were compiled, and other identifying scribbles. Then they looked at each other before Abboud looked back at Donny and spoke.

  “Yes, well, that is an intriguing project, and one that may be of interest to our commissioners, but that is not what we wish to speak with you about.”

  “Oh,” said Donny.

  “We are investigating the death of President Mack.”

  Donny sat back, trying to process that.

  “We have learned you were on the team of lawyers that defended him after his arrest by the new government.”

  “Calling them a government is generous,” said Donny. “And I only helped with the sentencing.” Admitting that out loud still made him blush with shame, even as he knew he had done the right thing.

  “We understand,” said Abboud. “Very honorable of you, to fight against the death penalty even when the defendant is someone who has killed your friends.”

  “Tell that to my other friends,” said Donny. He didn’t mention that he had also lost family to the regime. “That’s why they kicked me out of New Orleans.”