Blackfish City

by Sam J. Miller

  “Tell me about New York,” Ankit said. She didn’t know why she said it. As soon as she did, she knew it was wrong. He hadn’t mentioned the place. Only his accent had given it away.

  His face seemed to break. First it tightened, as though he was growing angry again, and then it broke.

  “I . . . can’t” was all he managed to say.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and he turned his head away, nodded as she stood up, thanked him profusely for his time, his insight, apologized again, promised to return.

  Why, she wondered, descending the narrow back stairs, why did I ask such a cruel and thoughtless question—

  Why—

  Because his pain is mine, she realized, when the cardamom smell of doodh pati hit her down at grid level, because the ache of what he’s lost is the same as the ache of what I’ve never had, and spent my whole life longing for. My mother is his city.

  City Without a Map: Dispatches from the Qaanaaq Free Press

  Depending on your definition of press, Qaanaaq hosts anywhere from five hundred to two thousand different press outlets, sites and broadsheets from every political and religious affiliation of every one of the city’s hundreds of expatriate communities. The Greater India Reunification Party, never a significant political player in its home countries, is the publisher of Qaanaaq’s most widely read news source, hated and beloved and fiercely argued about among the quarter of the city’s population hailing from the various South Asian nations, rent asunder by imperialism and Partition and the Water Wars but reunited by Qaanaaq’s xenophobia. The Final Call gives equal column space to absurd conspiracies and all-too-real genocidal actions by North American power players. Evangelize! rails endlessly against the same handful of subjects—the ease of acquiring abortifacients, the difficulty of acquiring firearms, the means by which solving the latter problem could address the former. Several popular sites urge Qaanaaq’s Han Chinese to fight back against the Tibetan takeover of the motherland.

  Whatever ax you have to grind, whatever lost world you are pining for, there is a press outlet for you. Probably several. And whatever happens, plenty of people have plenty to say about it.

  From the Maoist Pioneer [in Nepali]:

  Two weeks after her arrival in Qaanaaq, the Blackfish Woman may be the most hated person in the city. Already reactionary religious elements are whispering together, and soon they will do more than whisper. As has happened so many times before, superstition is being used to focus the angers of a desperate populace on the wrong target. And why? To displace their very righteous anger over the city’s mistreatment of workers. The very people who pay such low wages that workers in Arm Eight must sleep stacked in boxes, the very same businesses who fired pipe workers for attempting to unionize for better workplace safety, would have you believe that the arrival of weary refugees is our greatest threat, or that a battle-scarred survivor of genocide must be murdered.

  From Yomiuri Shimbun [in Japanese]:

  When the cities of America’s South and Midwest began to burn, and the continental United States became a hellhole ruled by marauding warlords, and the Northern Migration began, dozens of new communities began to form. Some were mobile city-states headed up by armed militias; some were ambulatory religious communes; some were united by common geographic or ethnic origin. Some were thousands strong; some numbered in the dozens. Many adapted to the freezing new climate by joining existing Inuit communities or by adopting their way of life.

  Few took detailed notes. Many documented themselves in the photographs and films of average citizens, the majority of which have been lost to poor preservation, outdated hardware, and evolving file formats. Historians of the period must contend with a mess of songs, passed-down family stories, and the reports of outraged neighbors on whose shores and at whose gates they landed.

  Many tall tales emerged from this seething stew of internal refugees, but perhaps the most myth-shrouded story of all is that of the nanobonded. A whole community of people who were either deliberately or accidentally exposed to experimental wireless nanomachines that established one-to-one networks between individuals, and who, through years of training and imprinting, could “network” themselves to animals, forming primal emotional connections so strong that they could control their animals through thought alone. And as with any new community in fundamentalist North America, there were plenty of people who thought that it was demonic, Antichrist-derived, the work of evil foreigners bent on undermining Caucasian hegemony. And, alas, like many communities, they are believed to have been wiped out in one of the many violent fundamentalist spasms that characterized the final years of the American republic.

  An absurd story, the evidence for which has been elaborately debunked.

  And yet—it would appear that one of them walks among us . . .

  From Krupp Monthly [in German]:

  Wilhelm Ruhr remembers the last Hive Project well.

  “We were finally there,” he says, his aging eyes lighting up. “On paper, it should have worked. The nanites talked to each other. They could do so over great distances. We even engineered them to self-replicate only when their brain concentration dropped below a certain level, and to be open to network imprinting only for their first six hours. All the problems that had caused us so many headaches in the previous iterations were solved. Or so we thought.”

  At the time, Wilhelm was working in Canada. These days, home is right here in Qaanaaq: Arm Three’s prestigious Kesiyn retirement center.

  “In mice, it worked. They were networked. Hurt one, and the others felt pain. If one figured out how to find the cheese at the end of the maze, all of them knew how to do it. Move them too far apart, and they experienced nausea, disorientation, eventually catatonia. We probably should have done monkey trials, but the way things were going in America it was much more cost-effective to just get a waiver signed and try it out on people.”

  Proximity to the border meant ease of testing on the recently deregulated country to the south. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had essentially been stripped of all its power to enforce clinical trial standards, and the residents of the resettlement villages were only too happy to take a chance in exchange for what was to them a lot of money.

  “It didn’t go well. Everybody knows that by now. Personally I think a lot of what got reported was exaggerated, or that the atrocities were due to other causes. Either way, talking about it isn’t going to make much difference.”

  Still, Wilhelm Ruhr does not feel guilty about what happened.

  “We were trying to do something good. If it had worked, think of what we’d have been able to accomplish. A nanosynced team of scientists could solve all sorts of the problems we currently face. A lot of people died in wars to topple bad governments—should their commanding officers feel guilty about sending them to their deaths? They feel bad, probably, which is how I feel, I suppose, but they don’t feel guilty.”

  And as for the arrival of the alleged “orcamancer,” rumored by many to be one of the legendary “nanobonded”?

  “People ask me about them all the time. So many people. They say things like, Do I think it’s possible that the nanite strain remained in a small group of people, and that their existing meditation practice enabled them to control it? And that it accidentally came together with other types of nanomedicine? Of course it’s possible. But as for whether I think that in the course of two generations they learned to cultivate the nanites, introduce them to nonhuman animals, and form mechanically facilitated telepathic links with them . . .” Here he pauses, and chuckles. “That’s a leap not even I am willing to make, and I’m a dreamer.”

  Soq

  A crowd of people, approximating a line. Each one of them wearing entirely too many clothes. Somehow still shivering. They stood out, on Arm Six.

  “What’re they waiting for?” Soq asked, arriving, acting extra cool and casual. “Is there a church here that serves food?”

  “Waiting for salvation,” Dao said. “Deliv
erance. Death. Christ, kid, I don’t know what they’re waiting for. I don’t think they’re waiting for anything.”

  “The breaks,” Soq whispered, watching them mutter and jerk.

  “The breaks.”

  People hurried past, trying hard not to look. A buoy clanged, and someone in the line started making similar noises. Then someone else did. The clanging rippled down the line, spreading as it went, heading for the Hub. “You’d think the city would . . . I don’t know, do something.”

  Dao offered a pack of pine needle cigarettes. Soq spent entirely too long debating what was the right choice here—Refuse one, to show I’m proud and independent? Accept one, to establish a personal bond?—and then pocketed three. “Yes, it’s strange, isn’t it? The city possesses the resources to whisk all these people away. Why haven’t they?”

  Soq fought the urge to shrug, say something flip. Treat everything like a test, even though probably none of it is. Dude could be just making conversation.

  “Software hasn’t come up with a solution yet,” Soq said. “They’re waiting.”

  “Ah,” Dao said. “I suppose that’s correct, on some level. That’s the official story, anyway. But these are some sophisticated programs we’re talking about. Capable of doing a trillion computations in a millisecond. Doesn’t seem like they’d need years to come up with something here.”

  Dao smiled, and Soq thought maybe they’d passed the test, if it had been a test.

  “Still, Safety will come tell them to move along soon,” Soq said. “Why aren’t they on Eight? They’d fit right in, among all the nutcases out there.”

  Dao frowned! Oh no! The test is failed!

  “Soq,” he said. “Really? Because this is their home. This is where they lived. Even if they couldn’t pay their rent anymore, or their family couldn’t take care of them, or they burned down their own building by accident, this Arm belongs to them as much as to any of the other souls who live here.”

  “Of course,” Soq said, trying, and failing, to not get nasty. “You wanted to set up a meeting with me in this particular spot—why? To discuss injustice? Medical software?”

  Dao smirked, and Soq got the impression that being cryptic and elliptical was an important management strategy. “Go has an assignment for you,” he said. “One she wanted discussed in person, rather than via messaging.”

  “Because it’s so dangerous and important and you don’t want any way it can be traced back to you?” Soq said, knowing it wouldn’t be.

  “Because it’s so strange. She thought you might have a hard time getting your head around it, and wanted me to answer any questions you might have.”

  God, why did this guy have to be such a dick all the time? “Shoot. Try your best to baffle me.”

  “Go is assigning you to the orcamancer.”

  Soq’s eyes widened with excitement. “Assigning me . . . how?”

  “Research her. Gather all the intel you can on her. Fact, fiction, legend, rumor. Follow her, if you can. Talk to her, if you can.”

  “Fat chance of that,” Soq said. “Tons of people have tried. She hasn’t said a word to anyone.”

  “You see?” Dao said. “You’re already on top of this job.”

  “Yeah,” Soq said. “But . . . why? What does the Blackfish Woman have to do with Go?”

  Dao rolled his eyes, turned his whole face skyward. “If it were up to me, this conversation would be over by now. But your assignment is important, and Go wanted me to answer your questions. So. Here’s the simplified, kiddie menu version. Go is beginning a very delicate and dangerous operation. She’s been planning it for years. It’s an extremely complex mathematical equation, and Go had it solved—and then, here comes this woman. An unknown variable, with the potential to be massively disruptive. Maybe she won’t affect the equation at all. Maybe she wants nothing to do with anything Go is working on. But if not, if whatever weird mission Little Miss Polar Bear is here to accomplish might impact something or someone we need for our plan to be successful, Go needs to know. And respond accordingly. Is that an acceptable explanation?”

  Important. Me. My assignment is important. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Good. You can message me updates. Call or visit only when it’s urgent. If she does something . . . I don’t know, big. Unusual.”

  Soq’s earlier visits to the Sports Platform had been for fun, but now it was for work. Destiny was nudging Soq toward the orcamancer. Soq was important. They could barely wait to get back there and sit in the presence of the polar bear woman again, watching wordlessly with the rest of the wide-eyed grid kids who had come to see something magical and monstrous.

  Ankit

  Wood smells like wealth, Ankit realized. Exposed beams filled the lobby of the corporate office building, smelling like money and safety and a time when the world was still solid beneath people’s feet.

  Her ears still rang from the screaming fit she’d gotten from Fyodorovna. It was almost comical, the mood at the office, the way everyone avoided eye contact with her, the sounds of shouting and pleading that came through the walls from the damage control phone calls her boss was forced to make.

  With effort, Ankit was able to block all that out. She was here, wasn’t she? She was doing what she had to do to make things right. Even when she wanted desperately to be anywhere else. Still no visit confirmation from the Cabinet. Processing, it said when she checked the status of her request. What was going on with Qaanaaq’s computer infrastructure, once the envy of the world, the stuff of legend?

  She shut her screen and breathed in the stink of money.

  The Salt Cave, they called it. Sharp artful salt crystals jutted from the walls, the residue of polymerized desalinization. The smooth crystals formed walkways several stories above her, shored up by old wood beams. Secretaries carried screens to meetings. Clients drank coffee. Out on the grid, a cry went through the crowd—wild-eyed people making a noise like buoys clanging, passing the sound from one person to the next.

  Upstairs, Ankit knew what she would find. Corporate offices were all alike. Either they all hired the same lone decorator, who was paid obscenely well to reproduce the same palette and aesthetic, or they hired a whole flock of them and paid them poorly to copy each other down to the slightest detail. Classical landscape above the reception desk; abstract expressionism on the south wall; the walls a blue shade of white. Or, Ankit thought, perhaps there was software for that, too, and every two years it issued a subtle new change to keep the look evolving over time. Salvaged wood instead of brushed steel for the filing cabinets; cactus bubbles instead of air plant terrariums hanging from the bathroom ceiling. The lack of imagination among the rich was its own kind of machine, its own species of artificial intelligence.

  A message from Ishmael Barron. A response to something she’d sent him at two A.M.

  She’d found something. Maybe nothing. Maybe not. The medical log of the Taastrup infirmary, a few enigmatic lines in a mass of hundreds of thousands. Patients suffering symptoms identical to the breaks—potential early cases—who’d been dosed with something called Quet-38-36.0—a tranquilizer, derived from an atypical antipsychotic—and been successfully sedated indefinitely. Remarkable, if these were indeed early breaks cases, because tranquilizers typically didn’t work on the breaks. And she’d shivered, to think of all that data, a quintillion pages’ worth of science and study and learning and theory and fact and fiction, still there, on old open servers and suspended-animation websites, like so much coastal land mass swallowed up by rising seas—open to all, for the taking, except no one cared, no one had the slightest desire to dive into that wreck. What else was there a cure for—what other horrific problems might be so easily solved?

  Never heard of Quet-38-36.0, Barron said. But it sounds promising. Let’s do more research.

  Stupid, to take out her screen to see Barron’s response. Now Ankit couldn’t help but see the notifications stream in. New poll numbers; new press hits. Free fall had stabilized, somewhat
. Fyodorovna’s subsequent silence on the subject of the breaks had emboldened her opponent. He posted photos of sick people crowding Arm Seven. Beggars babbling; children having fits. Tiny rooms where a dozen cots had been crammed. If she cares so much, why isn’t she doing anything for them?

  “Ankit, hi,” said Breckenridge, emerging from the bathroom, extending one wet hand. She took it, smiling to beat the band. “Oh good, they offered you coffee. Walk this way.”

  She followed him down the too-wide hallway, into the too-wide meeting room. Shareholders couldn’t help showing off. It was who they were. They all had front corporations to handle their holdings, raking in the cash and paying the taxes and hiring the management companies.

  “Bad mistake your boss made,” Breckenridge said. “Messing with the breaks. That stuff is poison. Tragic situation, but . . .”

  “I know,” Ankit said, smiling like she didn’t want to punch this guy in the throat, him and everyone else who had such pat responses for everything they didn’t want to think too deeply about. That stuff is poison. Terrible shame but.

  “I assume that’s what you’re here about?”

  “Mostly, yes,” she said. They sat. “That, and some intel.”

  “Intel? Or money?”

  “Both,” she said, although of course all she had come for was money. An intel exchange was performative, a cover for the in-person meeting. She’d needed to look him in the eye when she made the ask. Except now that she thought about it . . . maybe someone so close to someone so powerful would have some information she could use. “We’re taking a beating. We need to buy some more messaging bots, screen time, that kind of stuff.”

  “I’ll see what we can do. I already put the request in to the shareholder who heads up Fifty-Seventh when you asked for a meeting. I figured that’s what it was about. You really could have just sent the message.” He gave Ankit the sense that he slept under his desk. Not from poverty but from self-annihilating salaryman work ethic. “What was the intel you needed?”