Worldwired jc-3

by Elizabeth Bear

  Janet blinked her optic on, ordered the news feed to standby, and folded her arms as she leaned against the wall. If anything important happened, her hip unit would buzz.

  She spat a shell into her hand and flicked it toward the trash can. She missed. The front door warbled in her ear and she sighed and kicked her slippers off, thumbing her hip to check the security cameras. The image was dim, gray-green low-light. The sun wouldn't be up for hours. She knew who it would be before he even raised his face to the camera to allow himself to be identified, knew it by the long black car pulled up in the circular driveway and by the expensive cut of his suit.

  And who the hell else would be ringing her doorbell at four thirty in the morning?

  Tobias Hardy, of course. As if thinking the devil's name were enough to summon him.

  Only one of her Mounties was still up at this godforsaken hour, sitting on the sofa in the living room watching late-night holo. Internal cameras showed her how he got to his feet before the doorbell finished buzzing, and was moving toward the entryway even as she made her way up the steps from the rec room. He knew Hardy, but he still made a point of taking a thumbprint and checking ID. It never, ever hurt to be careful.

  “Ma'am?” the Mountie said, hearing her step behind him. He turned and caught her eye, his own very blue under shaggy terrier eyebrows. “I haven't patted him down yet, ma'am.”

  “It's okay, Kurt. I'll take him downstairs. Toby, come in.”

  Hardy stepped past the Mountie, a precise and calculated movement that made sure his suit didn't brush Kurt's arm. Kurt's eyebrows went up as he continued to hold Janet's gaze over Hardy's shoulder. Janet shrugged, not caring that Hardy saw her.

  “Thank you, Janet.” He stepped out of his loafers inside the door and lined them up neatly beside the shoes of other household members, but he couldn't resist a sidelong glance at Janet to make sure she noticed that he was kowtowing to the rules of the house. She kept her face expressionless as he stepped into a pair of slippers and followed her down to the basement.

  She didn't bother kicking her own slippers back on when she got to the bottom of the stairs. “Drink, Toby?”

  “Coffee?” He looked doubtfully at her slivovitz. “A little early for the hard stuff.”

  “It's a little late, for me,” she said, leaning back against the bar. Coffee, she told the house, and the house set about roasting and brewing. Kurt would bring it down when it was ready. She folded the letter closed, absently, and then folded it in half, and then tucked it into her jeans pocket, aware that Hardy was watching every move. “What warrants a clandestine predawn visit, Toby? You're not here to discuss Unitek's contributions to the Home Party.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “As sure as I can be.” She picked up her glass and downed half the pungent liquor in a gulp. It stung her sinuses and filled her mouth with the taste of overripe plums. She set the glass down and breathed in fire through pursed lips. “I don't know what you want me to do about the UN hearings. But whatever it is, the answer is no.”

  “I heard a rumor you were still in contact with the Chinese consulate in America. Unofficially, of course.” His eyes dropped to the corner of thick, ivory paper that poked from her pocket.

  “Which one of my staff members is on your payroll?”

  “Now, what makes you think that, Janet?”

  “Cold logic.” She heard the door open at the top of the basement stairs. The scent of coffee and the light, regular creak of footsteps followed it. A moment, and Kurt appeared at the landing, balancing a silver tray and the formal coffee service. Not the mismatched one that Janet had inherited from her grandmother, and which she kept for friends. A subtle vote of no confidence, but Kurt's level look into her eyes as he laid the tray on the bar counter was enough to reinforce it. “Are you going to New York, Toby?”

  “Unitek was closely involved in the events of December 22, 2062,” he said. He crossed the room as Kurt withdrew up the stairs, and poured his own coffee. A good guess; Janet hadn't been about to pour it for him.

  Instead she cupped her glass in both hands and frowned down at it, considering. “You're going to testify.”

  “Alberta is in no position to—”

  “—having died in the Chinese attack on Toronto.”

  “Died a martyr, and all that. Yes.”

  “Toby…”

  “What?” He paused, porcelain at his thin, pink lips, looking at her through his eyelashes. It wasn't a flattering pose.

  “You're going to hang Toronto on the prime minister, aren't you? You're maneuvering to put me in Constance's chair.”

  “Do you have a problem with that?” One of those eyebrows arched, and he sipped the coffee before he lowered the cup.

  “That depends,” she answered, and cracked the last sunflower seed between her teeth, and spit the shell into her hand. “What do you plan to do with me once you get me there?”

  His smile left a puddle of cold in the pit of her belly. He didn't answer.

  She finished her drink slowly and put the glass on the bar. “You know, Toby, if you're planning on buying somebody, it's good practice not to insult them while you're negotiating.”

  “That depends on how high a price you can afford to pay.” He poured himself another cup of coffee and held it in his blunt hands. The light over the bar caught pink and green scatters off the diamond chips in his wedding ring.

  Janet looked at the floor.

  “If you're not willing to negotiate, General, we can always find somebody else who is.”

  “We?”

  “Unitek,” he said, his eyes sincere. But he said it just a shade too quickly, and she reached for the coffee and a fresh cup to hide how badly she needed to swallow, to moisten her mouth.

  She sugared the coffee carefully and added just enough cream so that she could watch the pale ribbons curl through dark fluid. The folded letter in her pocket might have been printed on lead; she felt it press into her flesh. “We need to talk about Unitek,” she said, calmly. “When we rebuild, back east—”

  “When?”

  “When.” Firmly. “I'm prepared to work to see to it that there are advantageous arrangements available for any company willing to bring new industry to the Evac. Tax breaks and incentives. Especially if those companies are incorporated under Canadian law.”

  “You're ducking the subject, Janet.”

  “I'm not willing to betray my country as the price for your assistance, Toby.”

  “Janet.” Palpable disappointment in his voice. “I would never suggest such a thing.”

  “No, you'd ask it outright.” She sipped her coffee. She really wanted another glass of slivovitz, but Toby was right. It was a little early for drinking like a Brit. “Why don't you just ask me about the letter? It's written all over your face.”

  “It's a letter from General Shijie, isn't it?”

  Fortunately, the coffee cup was still in front of her mouth. “How did you know that?” Ignoring the arch look of triumph on his face, and knowing she'd handed him the keys to the castle.

  “It's my job to know things. He's offering you an alliance for space exploration, and alliance between PanChina and the commonwealth. Peace. Something Riel can't get for Canada, but you can, if he's head of the PanChinese Alliance.”

  “Yes.” She set her cup down and leaned both hands against the edge of the bar. The wood was hard and waxy under her hands. She tightened her fingers hard enough to whiten her knuckles, and sighed. “With the understanding that the current—emphasis his — administrations will not be involved.”

  “You need me, Janet.”

  She did. She needed him badly, him and his money and his ability to sidestep oversight, and the resources of his vast, American-headquartered corporation. “What's it going to cost me?”

  “I wouldn't worry overmuch.” He smiled, turning his coffee cup with a fingertip, leaving a wet ring spiraling the top of the bar. “Nothing you're not prepared to pay.”

 
Genie couldn't get used to the way Charlie had been acting kind of like one of the pilots since Aunt Jenny rescued him, staring into space and frowning a lot. And it was weird having Leslie talk out of the motes, but like he was in the room, not like he was conferenced in. The good news was, Papa didn't make her sit at the table and eat her scrambled soy protein and toast with a fork. Instead, she made a kind of sloppy sandwich out of the bread and yellow stuff and the gunk that wasn't anything like cheese, and went and sat on the floor under one of the hydroponics racks next to Boris while she ate.

  Boris seemed happy to be out of Genie's quarters. He sprawled on his side over one of the air vents, showing his cream-colored belly and begging to be petted, or maybe begging for another taste of the stuff that wasn't cheese. He would eat anything, she'd discovered, including cooked broccoli and pasta, but he liked greasy things best.

  Genie finished her sandwich, giving a last few crumbs to the cat, and scratched behind his ears as he sniffed politely after the food. He flattened his whiskers against his ginger-striped cheeks. She drew her knees up and folded her hands under her chin, and practiced being invisible.

  She scrunched herself up a little tighter and kept her eyes down, watching the tip of Boris's tail twitch thoughtfully as he slitted his eyes at a black-and-blue butterfly. At least there were advantages to being invisible. She was pretty sure that the grown-ups had forgotten all about her, even Papa, because they were talking about all kinds of interesting things, and they were the sort of interesting things that people usually wouldn't talk about if they remembered she was listening.

  For example, Charlie was saying to Papa right now, “… this is on the list of things I'm not supposed to tell anyone, Gabe—”

  “According to whom? I'm on the contact team, after all. We're all supposed to have the same clearances.” Papa leaned against one of the sturdy lab tables, his coffee cup vanishing inside his hand.

  “This isn't to do with the contact team.” Leslie said it, not Charlie, but Genie looked up and saw the way Charlie's face seemed to reflect the emotion in Leslie's voice. Creepy.

  “It's not any creepier than you talking to me,” Richard said, and Genie bit her lip.

  I can't help it if it bothers me, can I?

  “Sure you can. You're smart enough to know that you can decide what bothers you, and decide what you think is good or bad, instead of just reacting.”

  Papa hadn't stopped talking. “If it's not contact stuff, why is it so secret?”

  “Because it's nanite ‘stuff,'” Charlie answered. “Which is why we think we need your help.”

  Boris, annoyed at her neglect, reached out and grabbed Genie's soft foam ship-shoe. His claws went through it, even though he didn't mean her any harm. She would have yelped, but she was invisible, and if she made any sound, somebody might notice her. Instead she reached down and roughed up the fur under his chin. He stretched back out again, relaxing. She hoped he wouldn't purr too loudly.

  Papa set his coffee cup down, but not before he finished whatever was left in the bottom. “Richard?”

  “Right here, Gabriel.”

  “Is what they're about to tell me likely to reconvince me that we need to go over our operating systems for trap doors?”

  “Actually,” Richard answered, “I think it will convince you that you want to try to reprogram the tech from scratch. On the other hand, the risks involved in that—”

  “Like Jenny's life, you mean? And my daughter's?”

  Silence. Genie bit her lip. He'd definitely forgotten she was there. Genie shivered. Her butt was getting numb from sitting on the air register, but this was interesting.

  “And mine,” Richard said. “Although none of the nanotech that I inhabit appears to have problems yet, I am concerned.”

  “Putain de ordinateur. Richard. Problems?”

  “Forgive me, Gabriel. Before the EVA, Charlie discovered that the… nanotech in the ecospheres was dropping out of its networks for an unexplained reason. Or reasons. At first we thought they were dying, but further experimentation has led us to believe they're just… losing communication with each other.”

  “And this is ongoing?”

  “In patches. Or batches. They'll just stall.”

  Papa sighed and looked around for his coffee cup. Charlie gave it back to him, refilled. “I hope you have a good reason why I wasn't informed of this, Dick.”

  Leslie “coughed.” “Prime Minister Riel swore us to secrecy.”

  “So you're making me a party to treason?”

  “Yes. Well, it's not treason for me; it's just espionage. But since the rest of you are Canadians—”

  “Okay,” Papa said, looking down at his hands. “Spare me the hairsplitting. And you want me to find out who's hacking the machines and disabling them, and how, and why?”

  “Your reputation for perspicacity,” Richard said, “is not exaggerated, Mr. Castaign.” Genie could hear the amusement in his voice. Papa obviously could, too, from the way he rolled his eyes.

  Richard, I shouldn't be here for this.

  “Genie, I think you're more than grown up enough to understand this conversation, and why it's important, and has to be secret. Don't you?”

  “I think the whole team should know about this,” Papa said.

  “Jeremy already does,” Leslie answered.

  “Then Ellie needs to be brought in.”

  “All right. What about Paul?”

  Richard chuckled, a dry, almost mechanical sound. “I expect, somehow, that Dr. Perry would be just as happy not knowing about this little contretemps. I should hate, after all, to force him to choose between his loyalty to Constance, and to Canada.”

  Premier Xiong looked thinner in the space of a very few days, Riel thought, contemplating his image floating over her desk for a precious few seconds as she collected her thoughts. Not short days, though; abrogating cliché, the days had been as long as any she cared to remember. And they didn't promise to get any shorter in the near future.

  When we're finished saving the world, she thought, I'm going on a nice long trip someplace warm, changing my name, and buying a pineapple plantation. Or maybe sugar cane. And then I'm going to let the whole damned place go to seed, and sit on the front porch and play poker and drink daiquiris until my eyes cross.

  Her eyes wanted to cross now, or at least to fuzz with exhaustion. She hoped her cosmetics were up to the task of making her look like a functioning human being, because she didn't feel like one. “Premier,” she said, and kicked her shoes off under the desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

  “You have an… interesting concept of ‘pleasure' in Canada, Prime Minister.” He let his eyes sparkle, as if he were flirting with her. One of the contradictions of the modern age; even the leaders of totalitarian states needed to be able to wield charm with natural grace and confidence.

  “I think I can be forgiven for finding you more entertaining than next year's fiscal realities.” She passed a hand across her interface plate, summoning coffee. “I don't think you'd be calling me on the secure hot line unless you had something too important to trust to diplomatic channels.”

  “I don't think either of us can afford to trust much to diplomatic channels at this juncture. Unless your political position is considerably more secure than my own. Or than I have been led to believe.”

  “I do have a few trustworthy advisers,” she answered, letting the wryness show in her voice. She could not afford to like this man, any more than he could afford to like her — but neither one of them would be in the position they were in if they weren't good at getting people to like them, to trust them, to confide. The irony and symmetry pleased her, and she smiled.

  He returned it. “General Shijie has made arrangements to travel to New York City next week, to testify.”

  “When I will be there.”

  “And the chief executive officer of Unitek.”

  “Tobias Hardy, surprise witness? That is an interesting piece of int
elligence, Premier. I suppose it would be useless of me to ask how you happened to come by it?”

  Xiong coughed against the back of his hand. “Through official channels.”

  Oh. Meaning that somebody in the Chinese government tipped somebody at the UN that he ought to be called as a witness. “You're asking me to put a good deal of faith in your channels, Premier. Without a complete understanding of why your government is so eager to offer assistance to mine.”

  “You'll be even more confused when I tell you that I have information that your Opposition will be moving for new elections after the hearings.”

  “Forgive my suspicion, Premier, but that would tend to indicate that you expect the hearings to come out rather well for PanChina. And you do not seem to be a man given to gloating over the corpses of your enemies.”

  “How little you know me.” But his eyebrows had climbed another quarter-inch up his unlined forehead.

  Riel glanced up as a rap announced the imminent opening of her door. She caught a glimpse of a red Mountie's jacket outside the doorway as her secretary came in with the coffee, and privacied the hologram over her desk. Premier Xiong could still see her and the office, and she could hear him through her ear clip, but the image over her interface plate dissolved into a wash of soothing blues and greens.

  He stayed silent. Once she had her coffee, Riel returned the interface to view mode. She wasn't fond of talking to images projected on her contact. “My apologies, Premier.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You were explaining to me how it is that you know more about the doings of my government than I do.”