A Good Old-Fashioned Future

by Bruce Sterling

  “Saaaaa …” riposted Mr. Inoue, patting the plasticized top of his shaven head. “The electroneural stabilizers of His Holiness the Master. They will soon be in mass production at our Fuji fortress.”

  “You got like a kids’ version of those, right?” said Starlitz.

  “Of course. His Holiness the Master has many children.”

  “So have you ever considered, like, a pop commercial version of those gizmos? Like with maybe a fully licensed cartoon character?”

  Mr. Inoue blinked. “I was led to understand that Mister Khoklov’s associates could supply us with military helicopters.”

  “The son of a bitch is on about the helicopters again,” Starlitz explained in Russian.

  Khoklov grunted. “Tell him we have a special on T-72 main battle tanks. Twenty million yen apiece. Just for him, though. No resales.”

  Starlitz conferred at length with Mr. Inoue. “He’s not interested in tanks. He wants at least six Mil-17 choppers with poison gas dispensers. Also some Spetsnaz Ranger vets to train the cult’s judo commando unit on their sacred island of Ishigakijima.”

  “Spetsnaz veterans? Very well. We’ve got plenty. Tell him he’ll have to find them visas and put up earnest money. Those black berets aren’t your average goons.”

  Starlitz conferred again. “He wants to know if you know anything about laser ablation uranium-enrichment techniques.”

  “Nyet. And I’m getting pretty tired of that question.”

  “He wants to know if you’re interested in learning how they do that sort of thing at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.”

  Khoklov groaned. “Tell him I appreciate the lead on industrial atomic espionage, but that crap went out with Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs.”

  Starlitz sighed. “Let’s give Inoue-san a little face here, Pulat Romanevich. His Holiness the Master predicts the world will end in 1997. We play along with the cult’s loony apocalypse myths, and we can lock in their deposits all the way through winter ninety-six.”

  “Why do we need this plastic-headed lunatic?” Khoklov said. “He’s a crooked exploiter of the gullible masses. He’s running dummy companies inside Russia and recruiting Russian suckers for his ridiculous yoga cult. He needs us more than we need him. He’s a long way from home. Put the strong-arm on him.”

  “Listen, ace. We need the cult’s deposit money, because we need that yen disparity to cover the flow of black capital. Besides, I’m the Tokyo liaison for this gig! It’s true the mafia could break his knees inside Russia, but back in Japan, his pals are building big stainless-steel bunkers full of giant microwaves.”

  “There are limits to my credulity, you know,” Khoklov said testily. “Botulism breweries? Nerve gas factories? Hundreds of brainwashed New Age robots building computer chips for a half-blind master criminal in white pajamas? It’s completely absurd, it’s like something out of James Bond. Please inform this clown that he’s dealing with real-life professionals.”

  Starlitz raised his hand and signaled. “Check please.”

  “Here you are sir,” said Aino. “I hope you and your foreign friends are enjoying your stay in hospitable Helsinki.”

  After the Helsinki disco bombing, Raf moved his center of operations to the Ålands proper. The hardworking youngsters of the S.A-I.C. had found him another bolthole—a sauna retreat in the dense woods of Kökar Island. This posh resort belonged to a Swedish arms corporation who had once used it to entertain members of various Third World defense departments. Handy day-trips into the Ålands had assured them privacy and avoided potential political embarrassments on Swedish soil. This Swedish company had fallen on hard times due to the massive Russian bargain-basement armaments sales. They were happy to sublet their resort to Khoklov’s well-heeled shell company.

  “We can’t all be Leninist ascetics,” Raf declared cheerily. “One can still be a revolutionary in decent shoes.”

  “Decent shoes count for plenty in Russia these days,” Starlitz agreed.

  Raf leaned back in his lacquered bentwood chair. The resort’s central office, with its stained glass windows and maniacally sleek Alvar Aalto furniture, seemed to suit him very well. “We’ve reached a delicate stage of the revolutionary process,” Raf said, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Integrating the dual strike-forces of the liberation front.”

  “You mean introducing your Yankee guys to your Russian guys?”

  “Yes. And what better neutral ground for that encounter than the traditional Finnish sauna?” Raf smiled. “Lads together! Nothing to hide! No clothes. No guns! Just fresh clean steam. And plenty of booze. And since the boys have been training so hard, I’ve prepared them a nice surprise.”

  “Women.”

  Raf chuckled. “They are soldiers, you know.” He leaned forward onto the desk. “Did you examine this resort? We have certain expectations to keep up!”

  Starlitz had examined the resort and the grounds. There had been more hookers through the place than Bofors had heavy machine guns. The grounds were private and extensive. Coups had been launched successfully from less likely places.

  Starlitz nodded. “I get the drill. You know that I have a business appointment with that little old lady today. You set this up this way on purpose, just so I’d miss all the fun.”

  Raf paused, and thought this over. “You’re not angry with me, are you, Starlitz?”

  “Why do you say that, Raf?”

  “Why be angry with me? I’m loaning you Aino. Isn’t that enough? I didn’t have to give you a translator for your business scam. I’m trusting you, all alone on a little boat, with my favorite lieutenant. You should be grateful.”

  Starlitz stared at him. “Man, you’re too good to me.”

  “You should look after Aino. My little jackal has been under strain. I know you are fond of her. Since you took such pains to speak with her behind my back.”

  “No, I’ll leave her here with you tonight,” Starlitz offered. “Let’s see what your twenty naked, drunken mercs will do with a heavily armed poetry major.”

  Raf sighed in mock defeat. “Starlitz, you don’t bullshit as easily as most really greedy people.”

  “Good of you to notice, man.”

  “Of course, I do want you to take Aino away for a while. She’s young, and she would misinterpret this. Let’s be very frank. These men I bought for us—they are brutal men who kill and die for pay. They must be given rewards and punishments that they can understand. They’re whores with guns.”

  “I’m always happiest when I know the worst, Raf. You haven’t told me the worst yet.”

  “Why should I confide in you? You never confide in me.” Raf pushed an ashtray across the desk. “Have a cigarette.”

  Starlitz took a Gauloise.

  Raf lit it with a flourish, then lit his own. “You talk a lot, Starlitz,” he said. “You bargain well. But you never talk about yourself. Everything I discovered about you, I have found out through other people.” Raf coughed a bit. “For instance, I know that you have a daughter. A daughter that you’ve never seen.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I have seen your daughter. I have photos. She’s not like you. She’s cute.”

  “You’ve got photos, man?” Starlitz sat up. “Video?”

  “Yes, I have photos. I have more than that. I have contacts in America who know where your daughter is living. She lives with those strange West Coast women.…”

  “Yeah, well, I admit they’re plenty strange, but it’s one of those postnuclear family things,” Starlitz said at last.

  “Would you like to meet your daughter? I could snatch her and deliver her to you here in the Ålands. That would be easy.”

  “The arrangement’s not so bad as it stands,” Starlitz said. “They let me send her kids’ books.…”

  Raf put his sock-clad feet on the desk. “Maybe you need to settle down, Starlitz. When a man gets to a certain age, he has to live with his decisions. Take me, for instance. Basically, I’m a family man.”
<
br />   “Wow.”

  “That’s right. I’ve been married for twenty years. My wife’s in a French prison. They caught her in ’78.”

  “That’s a long stretch.”

  “I have two children. One by my wife, one by a girl in Beirut. People think a man like Raf the Jackal must have no private life. They don’t give me credit for my dreams. Did you know I’ve written journalism? I’ve even written poetry. Poetry in Italian and Arabic.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Oh, but I do say. I will say more, since it’s just the two of us. No Russians here at the resort yet, to set up their tiresome bugging networks.… I have a good feeling about you, Starlitz. You and I, we’re both postmodern men of the world. We saw an empire break to pieces. That had nothing to do with silly old Karl Marx, you know.”

  “Could be, man.”

  “It was the 1990s at work. Breaking up is very infective. It’s everywhere now. It’s out of control, like AIDS. Did you ever meet a Lebanese warlord? Jumblatt, perhaps? Berri? Splendid fellows. Men like lions.”

  “Never met ’em.”

  “That’s a very good life, you know—becoming a warlord. It’s what happens to terrorists when they grow up.”

  Starlitz nodded. It was a very dangerous thing to have Raf so worried about his good opinion, but he couldn’t help but be pleased.

  “You seize a port,” Raf explained. “You grow dope. You buy guns. It’s like a little nation, but you don’t need any lawyers, or any bureaucrats, or any ad-men, or any stupid bastards in suits. You have the guns, and you have the power. You tell them what to do, and they run and do it. Maybe it can’t last forever. But as long as it lasts, it’s heaven.”

  “This is good, Raf. You’re leveling with me now. I appreciate that, I really do.”

  “The press says that I like to kill people. Well, of course I like to kill people! It’s thrilling. It gives your life a heroic dimension. If it wasn’t thrilling to kill people, people wouldn’t buy tickets to movies where people are killed. But if I wanted to kill, I’d go to Chechnya, Georgia, Abkhazia. That’s not the trick. Any idiot can become a warlord inside a war zone. The trick is to become a warlord where people are fat and soft and rich! You want to become a warlord just outside a massive, disintegrating empire. This is the perfect spot! I know I’ve had my little setbacks in the past. But the nineties are the sixties upside down. This time, I’m going to win, and keep what I win! I’m going to seize these little islands. I’ll declare martial law and rule by decree.”

  “What about your three-man provisional government?”

  “I’ve decided those boys are not reliable. I didn’t like the way they talked about me. So, I’ll short-cut the process, and produce very quick and decisive results. I’ll take twenty-five thousand people hostage.”

  “How do you manage that?”

  “How? By claiming that I have a Russian low-yield nuke, which in fact I don’t. But who would dare to try my bluff? I’m Raf the Jackal! I’m the famous Raf! They know I’m capable of that.”

  “Low-yield nuke, huh? I guess the old terrie scenarios are the good ones.…”

  “Of course I don’t have any such nuke. But I do have ten kilos of cheap radioactive cesium. When they fly Geiger counters over—or whatever silly scientific thing those SWAT squads use—that will look very convincing. The Finns won’t dare risk another Chernobyl. They still glow in the dark from that last one. So I’m being very reasonable, don’t you agree? I’m only asking for a few small islands and a few thousand people. I’ll observe the proper niceties, if they allow me that. I’ll make a nice flag and some coinage.”

  Starlitz rubbed his chin. “The coinage thing should be especially interesting given the electronic bank angle.”

  Raf opened a desk drawer and produced a shotglass and a duty-free bottle of Finnish cloudberry liqueur. The booze in the Ålands was vastly cheaper than Finland’s. “Singapore is only a little island,” Raf said, squinting as he poured himself a shot. “Nobody ever complains about Singapore’s nuclear weapon.”

  “I hadn’t heard that, man.”

  “Of course they have one! They’ve had it for fifteen years. They bought the uranium from the South Africans during apartheid, when the Boers were desperate for money. And they built the trigger themselves. Singaporeans will take that kind of trouble. They are very industrious.”

  “Makes sense to me.” Starlitz paused. “I’m still getting a general handle on your proposal. Give me the long-term vision, Raf. Let’s say that you get what you want, and they somehow let you keep it. What then? Give me ten years down the road.”

  “People always asked me that question,” Raf said, sipping. “You want one of these cloudberries? Little golden berries off the Finnish tundra, it surprises me how sweet they are.”

  “No thanks, but don’t let me stop you, man.”

  “In the old days, people would ask me—mostly these were hostage negotiators, all the talking would get old and we’d all get rather philosophical sometimes.…” Raf screwed the cap precisely onto the liqueur bottle. “They’d say to me, ‘Raf, what about this Revolution of yours? What kind of world are you really trying to give us?’ I’ve had a long time to consider that question.”

  “And?”

  “Did you ever hear the Jimi Hendrix rendition of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner?’ ”

  Starlitz blinked. “Are you kidding? That cut still moves major product off the back catalog.”

  “Next time, really listen to that piece of music. Try to imagine a country where that music truly was the national anthem. Not weird, not far-out, not hip, not a parody, not a protest against some war, not for young Yankees stoned on some stupid farm in New York. Where music like that was social reality. That is how I want people to live. People are sheep, and they don’t have the guts to live that way. But if I get a chance, I can make them do it.”

  Starlitz liked speed launches. Piloting them was almost as much fun as driving. Raf’s contacts had stolen one from Copenhagen and motored it across the Baltic at high speed. Since it was a classic dope-smuggler’s vehicle, the Danish cops would assume it had been hijacked by dope people. They wouldn’t be far wrong.

  Starlitz examined the nautical map.

  “I shot a cop today,” Aino said.

  Starlitz looked up. “Why do you say that?”

  “I shot a cop dead. It was the constable in Mariehamm. I went into his little office. I told him someone stole the spare tire from my car. I took him around the back of his little office to see my car. I opened the trunk, and when he looked inside for the tire, I shot him. Three times. No, four times. He fell right into the trunk. So I threw him in the trunk and shut it. Then I drove away with him.”

  Starlitz folded the nautical map very carefully. “Did you phone in a credit?”

  “No. Raf says it’s better if we disappear the cop. We’ll say he that defected back to Finland with the secret police files. That will be a good propaganda coup.”

  “You really iced this guy? Where’s the body?”

  “It’s in this boat,” Aino said.

  “Take the wheel,” said Starlitz. He left the cockpit and looked into the launch’s fiberglass hold. There was a very dead man in uniform in it.

  Starlitz turned to her. “Raf sent you to ice him all by yourself?”

  “No,” said Aino proudly, “he sent Matti and Jorma with me, but I made them keep watch outside.” She paused. “People lie when they say it’s hard to kill. Killing is very simple. You move your finger three times. Or four times. You imagine doing it, and then you plan it, and then you do it. Then it’s done.”

  “How do you plan to deal with the evidence here?”

  “We wrap the body in chains that I bought in the hardware store. We drop him into the Baltic between here and the little old lady’s island. Here, take the wheel.”

  Starlitz went back to piloting. Aino hauled the dead cop out of the hold. The corpse outweighed her considerably, but she was strong and deter
mined, and only occasionally squeamish. She hauled the heavy steel chains around the corpse with a series of methodical rattles, stopping every few moments to click them tight with cheap padlocks.

  Starlitz watched this procedure while managing the wheel. “Was it Raf’s idea to send along a corpse with my negotiations?”

  Aino looked up gravely. “This is the only boat we have. I had to use this boat. We don’t seize the ferries until later.”

  “Raf likes to send a message.”

  “This is my message. I killed this cop. I put him in this boat. He’s a uniformed agent from the occupying power. He’s a legitimate hard target.” Aino tossed back her braids, and sighed. “Take me seriously, Mister Starlitz. I’m a young woman, and I dress like a punk because I like to, and maybe I read too many books. But I mean what I say. I believe in my cause. I come from a small obscure country, and my group is a small obscure group. That doesn’t matter, because we are committed. We truly are an armed revolutionary strike force. I’m going to overthrow the government here and take over this country. I killed an oppressor today. That is a duty of an armed revolutionary.”

  “So you take the islands by force. Then what?”

  “Then we’ll be rid of these Åland ethnics. They’ll be on their own. After that, we Finns can truly be Finns. We’ll become a truly Finnish nation, on truly authentic Finnish principles.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we move into the Finno-Ugric lands that the Russians stole from us! We can take back Karelia. And Komi. And Kanti-Mansiysk.” She looked at him and scowled. “You’ve never even heard of those places. Have you? They’re sacred to us. They’re in the Kalevala. But you, you’ve never even heard of them.…”

  “What happens after that?”

  She shrugged. “Is that my problem? I’ll never see that dream fulfilled. I think the cops will kill me before then. What do you think?”

  “I think these are gonna be kind of touchy book-contract negotiations.”

  “Stop worrying,” Aino said. “You worry too much about trivial things.” She gave a last methodical wrap of the chain, and heaved the dead cop overboard. The corpse bobbed face-down in the wake of the boat, then slowly sank from sight.