“Why can’t they do it peacefully?” the boy says. “Why can’t the people just vote for a new president? That’s what a republic is, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately terms like republic and democracy are a little more subjective than you might think. Have you ever heard of the Thirty-first Amendment?”
“I heard of it.”
“Do you know what it does?”
“Not really.”
“The Thirty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution legalizes the transfer of suffrage from a citizen to his or her economic sponsor, patron, or benefactor. In other words, it gives the company you work for the right to cast a vote on your behalf. Guess where the inspiration for it came from?”
“Sierra Leone?”
“Exactly. Corporations control over ninety percent of votes in Sierra Leone, and most of the corporations are controlled by foreign interests. Technically and legally, Sierra Leone and the United States are both democracies, but in reality, they’re more like plutocracies.”
“What’s that?”
“It means they’re ruled by the wealthy rather than by the majority. But since Americans probably wouldn’t put up with an actual plutocracy, the wealthy put a lot of effort into maintaining a democratic facade.”
The boy gestures toward the projection. “How long have those people been out there?”
“Months. And they’re going to stay out there until they either get what they want, or until they get put down. That’s why if someone’s going to knock that wall down, they need to do it soon. It’s only a matter of time before foreign militaries go in to protect their investments.”
The boy cocks his head and studies Alexei. “Why do you even care about the Africans?” he says. “They ain’t even your people.”
Alexei blows smoke through his nose as he leans back. The joints of the straight-back chair groan and creak under his weight.
“How’s your Russian history?” Alexei asks the boy.
“It pretty much sucks.”
“You ever hear of Chernobyl?”
“I heard of it,” the boy says, “but I don’t know anything about it.”
Alexei leans forward and crushes his cigarette out in the ashtray. He reaches for the pack, but does not light a fresh one. “If I were a history teacher, I’d probably tell you that Chernobyl was the site of the worst accident in the history of nuclear technology. I’d tell you that it killed forty-seven plant workers right away, but that it was eventually responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands.” He pauses and raps his miniature plasma torch against the polished stone surface of the table. “But as the child of two engineers who not only worked in the plant, but who actually helped design and build it, I’d tell you that the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Station operated for over two years without the ability to safely run cooling pumps in the event of a power outage. I’d tell you that the test that destabilized the reactor core violated multiple very basic safety protocols and should never have been allowed. I’d tell you that because of a design flaw so fundamental that a clever enough high school student could have probably spotted it—a flaw both my parents pointed out to their superiors, only to be reprimanded for insubordination—the emergency shutdown procedure actually increased the reaction rate rather than slowing it down. And finally I’d tell you that the only engineers who can explain exactly what happened there that morning were killed in the initial explosion—before they had a chance to talk to anyone.”
“You think there was some kind of cover-up?”
“Not a cover-up,” Alexei says. “What I’m saying is that Chernobyl wasn’t an accident at all. It was an experiment.”
“What?” The boy looks at Alexei with a combination of horror and skepticism. “What the hell for?”
“To see what would happen if well over half a million people were exposed to varying levels of radioactivity. But more importantly, to see what would happen to their children. And their children’s children. And the next generation after that. To see if it was possible to induce enough mutation over a large and diverse enough population that some of the results—even just three or four out of hundreds of thousands and eventually millions—might actually prove to be not just viable mutations, but actually beneficial.”
The boy is looking down at the table. Alexei can see that his eyes are searching the veins of minerals running through the dark marble.
“I’m one of those children, Andre. And now, indirectly, so are you. And so is every other child I’ve brought into this house. That’s why I care about the people of Sierra Leone. We may be fighting different fights, but we’re on the same side.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Dre says. “You already got the money. Or if you don’t, you can get it. Just sell your jet, or this house, or a few of them cars you got. Shit, just sell that watch you got on and you’d probably be halfway there.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The money to fund this kind of operation has to be completely untraceable. You have to understand that the repercussions of punching a hole in that wall are tremendous. I’m not just talking about in Africa and Asia. I’m talking about right here in the US. Remember, we’re silent investors. We have almost as much tied up in Africa as the Chinese—as do the Russians, Japanese, Brazilians, Indians, Germans, and just about everyone else. An attack on New Guangdong would be seen as an attack on most of the global economy. Whoever knocks down that wall will have every intelligence agency and secret police organization on the entire planet looking for him, and that’s not something I can afford.”
“But even if I win the money,” the boy says, “it’s still coming from you, right?”
“You’re exactly right, Dre. It would be very difficult for someone like me to anonymously fund a revolution with such a massive global impact. I’d be risking everything I’ve built here. That’s why the money has to come from someone else. Someone untraceable. Someone with no family. No official address. No real connections. No public records, and barely any government documentation. Someone who nobody would ever suspect of having the resources, connections, or the incentive to start a revolution halfway around the world.”
The boy stands up so fast that he tips his chair back. He glares at Alexei through an expression of both fear and defiance.
“You want to know why you’re here, Dre?” Alexei says calmly. He stands and looks down at the boy. “You’re not just here to play video games and win some pocket change. You’re here to help me change the entire course of human history.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alexei considers it a bug in Emma’s notification heuristics that she waits until he is sitting in the spacious stacked-granite master bathroom shower with a buxom German nanny on his lap to inform him that Andre did not train at all the previous day, and so far has spent the entire morning in the gym. Ingrid actually covers herself and blushes when she hears the gentle female voice emanate from the ceramic speakers overhead. Alexei manages a sardonic and begrudging “thank you,” then proceeds to make his best effort to pick up where he left off; however he finds that the mood has been irreconcilably spoiled. When he finally accepts that he is too distracted by what he has just learned to continue, he uses the touch screen in the glass door to shut off the array of showerheads around them and then tells Emma to clear his calendar for the afternoon before activating the cyclonic driers. Ingrid is clearly in disbelief as Alexei prompts her to remove herself from his lap. This has gone on long enough, he mutters to himself as he finishes drying his scalp with a cut of cream-colored Egyptian cotton, tactfully silkscreened with subtle, brown tiger stripes. He leaves the towel on the floor and exits the bathroom amid a long string of German slurs issuing from the shower behind him.
He finds Dre downstairs in the gym. The boy has been working out at least once a day since he arrived and he has indeed started to fill out. He is wearing a T-shirt which he has either cut or torn the sleeves off of, and which exposes his well-defined deltoids, biceps, and tric
eps. His breathing is heavy and his braids are pulled back behind his head.
“You like watches, right?” Alexei asks from the door. He is wearing a fitted purple silk shirt with double-headed eagle cufflinks, black slacks, and substantial black pointed boots.
The boy shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I’m going watch shopping. You want to come?”
“You going someplace with Rolexes?”
“I’m going someplace with much more than Rolexes,” Alexei tells the boy. “It’s time we begin your watch education in earnest. Come on. We’ll grab some lunch while we’re out.”
“I gotta take a shower first.”
Alexei shakes his head. “I hope you have better luck with yours than I had with mine,” he says. “I’ll meet you in the garage in fifteen.”
The boy appears in the kitchen having done his best to keep up with Alexei fashion-wise. He is wearing black jeans which contain two to three times the amount of denim required to effectively cover his legs, an oversized black T-shirt, and black sneakers with red accents. His braids are down again and swing just above his shoulders as he walks.
“You ready to learn something?” Alexei asks the boy.
“I guess,” the boy says with the combination of apathy and broodiness Alexei is gradually beginning to accept as normal.
Alexei starts toward the garage and stops. He turns back to the boy and leans in to get a closer look at his prosthetic eye.
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
“Yeah, why?”
There’s a tiny white battery icon in the center of the boy’s pupil. Alexei places a finger below his own eye.
“When was the last time you charged?”
“Oh, shit.”
“Go get the car charger. We’ll do it on the way.”
The vehicle Alexei chooses has to be one of his least favorite cars on the entire planet: the Chinese-built Cherry Brilliance. It’s an absurd looking machine which is little more than two shoulder-to-shoulder seats inside of a glass bubble on top of four giant, nonpneumatic, polymer castors. The cockpit can pivot 360 degrees as can the castors which, even Alexei has to admit, means all kinds of new and interesting possibilities for the auto-drive system—especially in the context of urban parking—but the overall look is, in Alexei’s distinguished and rigorously refined opinion, positively asinine. However, Dre had been delighted by the vehicle the first time he explored the garage—declaring it “pimp” or “sublime” or some such reverent accolade—so Alexei picks it this morning in the dim hope of raising the boy’s spirits.
Although they know where they are going, they have no idea where they actually are. The car’s glass dome is white and fully opaque—not in order to conceal their identities (that could easily be done with one-way obscuration) but to prevent the occupants from seeing out. Andre is allowed unrestricted access to most of the house and to the grounds, and he is permitted to leave whenever he wishes, but he is not allowed—under any circumstances whatsoever—to know where the compound is located. As vehicles leave the garage, their windows either darken or brighten, and they do not clear up again until they are within a kilometer of their destination. On the way back, the process reverses itself. Routes are randomized and, if time permits, superfluously extended in order to throw off passengers who might be trying to keep track of turns. GPS signals that penetrate the cockpit are jammed to thwart surreptitious attempts at generating maps with a handset. Dre frequently rolls his eyes at Alexei’s paranoia, to which Alexei responds by expressing his sincere hope that none of the children who live with him will ever have to learn the hard way that the precautions they are forced to take are in fact for their own good.
The cable that runs from the dashboard of the Cherry to Dre’s eye terminates in a filament that coils throughout a transparent, antimicrobial contact lens. After magnetically aligning itself, it charges the prosthetic inductively in anywhere from five to fifteen minutes, depending on the power source. The coupling is weak enough to avert catastrophe should the cable be inadvertently yanked, and the lead coming off the lens is thin enough that it does not irritate Dre’s eyelid as he blinks. When he feels two quick successive vibrations, the boy detaches the charger, stows it in its pouch, and slips it inside one of the car’s many cargo compartments.
Since Alexei is not a resident of Century City, he must register at the gate as a temporary retail tourist before he and Dre are allowed to enter. His credit checks out and he is granted the privilege of purchasing a one-day pass good for the Westfield Century City mall and all adjacent restaurants, cafés, bars, coffeehouses, bistros, and quaintly themed diners—seating and dress code permitting, of course. The mall’s Park Assist® system is auto-drive compatible, which allows Alexei and Andre to be dropped off along Santa Monica Boulevard and be spared any extraneous exertion.
The largest authorized dealer of Swiss timepieces in LA is Rousseau, and their flagship store is located on the first level of Westfield Century City mall, just past Bloomingdale’s. Although the shop is characteristically empty for midmorning on a weekday, the panoramic displays behind the counters give the impression of a comfortable crowd. Attractive, confident, and powerful individuals to which we are all expected to aspire perform for the voyeuristic pleasure of esteemed Rousseau clientele. A dashing and mysterious young man—his dark features hardened into an austere but handsome mask—pushes his 911 Carrera to the very precipice of its capabilities as he pilots it along the German autobahns; a middle-aged man and his petite blonde companion enjoy a sunny afternoon of yachting and lobster tail, impossibly radiant strawberries, and chilled champagne as their boat hovers above the translucent turquoise of the Caribbean; a distinguished and eminently eligible gentleman in a custom-tailored tuxedo and a caramel-complexioned brunette in a red strapless evening gown give each other lascivious glances between ice sculptures at a private cocktail affair. The characters are all free to enjoy their boundless affluence and experience the intoxicating drama of their virtual lives with a level of algorithmic autonomy that yields infinite possibility and endless entertainment—so long as they do so with the prominent timepieces on their wrists perpetually in frame.
Dre goes directly for the Rolexes while Alexei approaches the counter squarely between the Audemars Piguet and Hublot display cases. When he looks up, a woman has already stolen out from some unseen passage in the digital mural. Her rich copper hair is gathered high atop her head and maintained through some mysterious art which few men can fathom, and which is usually reserved for bridesmaids. She either has a small amount of Asian in her, or a plastic surgeon—perhaps one conveniently located in this very mall—has done a credible job of recreating the effect.
“I’m Rebecca,” the woman says warmly. She extends her delicate fingers in a way that seems to imply that Alexei is free to plant a kiss on her knuckles—or possibly even as far up as her neck, should he care to take the liberty.
“Alexei,” Alexei responds, accepting her hand and settling for a gentle squeeze. He lingers as men who are about to spend exorbitant amounts of money usually assume they have the right to do, and Rebecca does not object.
“You obviously have very refined taste,” Rebecca observes.
Alexei allows her fingers to slip away—undoubtedly a metaphor for how the finer things in life can so easily escape our grasps if we do not act boldly and decisively.
“I’ve been known to have an unhealthy obsession with perfection.”
“Then you have certainly come to the right place, Alexei,” Rebecca tells him. She smiles in a way that the uninitiated could be forgiven for misinterpreting as innuendo, but Alexei knows better. “And let me assure you that there is nothing unhealthy about an obsession with perfection—especially when it comes to the single most important thing a man can wear: his timepiece.”
She dips beneath the counter and returns with a striking specimen in rose gold. When she places it on the counter, an image of a distinctly European man with wavy collar-len
gth black hair and dark stubble appears beside it in the glass. He is holding a pencil in his right hand which he is using to sketch something on a large pad, and on his left wrist is the very watch that lays before them, clearly the source of all his artistic and sexual prowess. A list of specifications animate in: rose gold case, markers, and hands; glare-proof sapphire crystal and case back; black tapestry ceramic dial; hand-stitched crocodile strap; forty-jewel movement with a sixty-hour power reserve. Indeed, everything one needs in order to make an informed purchasing decision—except for the price.
“It’s stunning, isn’t it, Alexei?”
“I’m more of a tool watch kind of guy,” he tells Rebecca. “But considering all the trouble you went to fetch it for me, it would be rude not to at least try it on, wouldn’t it?”
He reaches under his sleeve to remove the IWC Ingenieur he walked in with when the voices he has been monitoring behind him suddenly intensify.
“Man, fuck you,” he hears Dre say.
Alexei turns and sees the posture of the little boy he took out of West Baltimore. He is glaring across the counter at a pale young man with stylishly shaggy strawberry blond hair, a light pinstriped suit, and a salmon (a.k.a. pink) tie. The man is glaring unflinchingly right back at the boy.
“You have exactly three seconds to get out of my store before I call security.”
One of the man’s hands is under the counter, presumably poised to trigger a silent alarm. Alexei turns back to Rebecca. “Pardon me for just one moment,” he says politely.
When he approaches the opposite counter, the salesman’s demeanor changes. “I apologize for the disruption, sir,” he says. “We’ll have this resolved momentarily.”
“What’s your name?” Alexei asks the man.
“I’m Jacob, sir, and I would be very happy to take extremely good care of you as soon as we have this situation resolved.”
Kingmaker Page 9
