by Stephen Moss
“I can guarantee twenty of the suits to any of your nation’s security forces before the upcoming meeting,” said Ayala magnanimously, “and a further fifty afterward. Provided, of course, that you are current signees of the TASC Independence Charter, and provided, gentlemen, that we can come to an agreement here today on the protocols I require.”
She looked around the room. She had surprised them, as she had planned to do, but she still saw hesitance. It was cracking under the weight of her clear resolve, but she had not won yet. On the one hand, she knew none of them wanted to be the one who would have to report back to their superiors that they had passed up a chance at such a prize, but nor did they wish to give in so easily either.
“I can offer one more thing, gentlemen. But this represents the full extent of my generosity in this matter.” They waited, and she did not disappoint. “If I am to ask for the right to fly a StratoJet into New York’s airspace, then it is only right that I offer the same courtesy to anyone else who thinks it appropriate.”
Most were taken aback, some were confused, some were outright suspicious, but all were at least a little bit curious. She went on, “TASC would like to offer to collect and deliver any of your state’s representatives that wish it directly from your home nations to the 34th street heliport for the meeting at the UN headquarters, along with full protection from TASC forces. In one of our StratoJets it will take roughly a quarter of the time to get to and from New York as it would on a conventional passenger jet, and your charges will be much safer along the way.”
She went on with a rare smile. “It is not required, not by any means. But I hope you will see it as the gesture of good will it is intended to be. If all goes well at the meeting, you can consider it the first step toward gaining full access to the StratoJets, for your own use and even production down the line.”
She remained smiling as she said this. Bordering on beatific, it was more than a little bit scary for those in the room that knew her well. But it was also enticing as well. They knew her as a hardline intelligence chief, but she had not always been so. She had once been a master at the art of seduction, and she employed some measure of that charm now.
They looked at her skeptically. It was an offer of candy from a stranger, there was no doubt about that, but this was no ordinary candy, and for all intents and purposes they were already in the stranger’s van anyway, so why not take the treat?
They would have to think about it. Oh, they would definitely have to think about it. Of course, she would say, take your time, she would say.
And so they would hear the rest of her requests and take them back to their superiors along with the details of her offer, and then they would get back to her.
But it would not be twenty minutes after the meeting had ended before the first of them started reaching out to her via her many back channels. Perhaps they could discuss a special consideration, in return for being the first to support her request. Perhaps a special relationship could be established. I could be a friend to you, they would say.
And who was the stranger offering candy now, she would think. But she would agree. For TASC needed them as much as they needed TASC. Indeed that was the whole point. As she and Neal had discussed in laborious detail since their declaration of independence, and communicated to their growing network of administrators and ambassadors and her growing network of spies: they must use a carrot whenever possible.
For they had some very nice carrots to use. But if the proverbial carrot on the end of the proverbial stick didn’t work, Ayala thought coldly, well then, she would just as happily use said stick to beat the proverbial shit out of them instead.
Chapter 6: Meating Room
The plane came in low and fast, piloted with aplomb by one of General Toranssen’s cadre of StratoJet pilots. It was not alone, and it was not the first. It was part of a chain of them coming into the heliport just south of the UN building on the east side of Manhattan.
The main highway that ran north-south along the river was closed to all but official traffic. It was a move that would have once caused a most unholy knot of traffic in the city, but not today. The blood ran a little thinner in New York’s veins now, and where there had once been a thrumming horde of taxis and town cars and pedestrians, now there was but a poor remnant of that same flow, still alive perhaps, but changed at the most fundamental level; a pallid vestige, its breath low, its eyes glazed.
As the jet came up the river from the harbor, from its thundering passage in from under the Verrazano Bridge and before that the broad expanse of the Atlantic, it reared its nose up, redirecting thrust out of the nozzle in its nose cone and bringing its main engines round to halt its flight and bring it in to hover.
Across the river the crowd roared once more as the plane came in. The reality of the country’s true plight was plain to see in the barely contained riot of people gathered along the mainland shorelines of north Brooklyn and Queens. Banners were held high, shouts and chants filled with vitriol and hatred echoed from the massed throng. Among the looted tenements and storefronts of once peaceful neighborhoods the depths of the fall played itself out in countless acts of violence, robbery, rape, and murder.
From his spot among the more senior of his staff standing on the FDR flyover that sat between the heliport and the UN headquarters, Police Chief Tony D’Amico stared at the mass, cringing at the shouts, more aware than he wanted to be of what was no doubt going on among the unpoliced mass. The unpolicable mass.
He had lost too many officers to trying to maintain the peace in the outer boroughs. He could only do so much. When the crowd got too big, the emotion too strong, all they could do was close the bridges and tunnels and wait. They would go in afterward and catalogue the destruction. They would follow up on some of the worst atrocities, if they had any evidence to follow up on. They would go after any signs of truly organized havoc, sometimes calling in the likes of Peter Cusick if they saw signs of one of the more powerful insurgent or separatist movements. After that Peter would deal with it using tools and mandates Tony didn’t have, or wish to know about.
On the broad concrete slab of the heliport, the latest StratoJet came in to land amongst the varied craft already there. A heavily armored town car was waiting. It was unique from the others that had come and gone from the heliport in that it would only ferry one team to the UN this morning, and it had its own driver and own security team. In a sea of high-ranking arrivals, this was both the newest head-of-state to arrive this morning and also one of the most important.
Radios sputtered news of the package’s arrival from the shoulders of captains and lieutenants around Chief D’Amico. Neal Danielson was on the ground.
- - -
“Do we have our final list of attendees?” said Jim to one of his many attendants.
“Yes sir. Here.” The man brought a page up on Jim’s iPad as if by magic, and Jim nodded. He still hadn’t had the spinal interface installed. It was planned for next week, but he had delayed it twice already.
Neal was being understanding, and indeed no one could question the efficiency of Jim’s work or the skill with which he had taken the reins of Neal’s burgeoning empire. But Jim knew it was getting embarrassing at this point.
Jim looked at the tablet in his hands. The tablet which the assistant in question was even now manipulating via his own spinal interface. It was equal parts disturbing and exciting, but he set the thought aside. He needed to keep his head clear as they prepared for the next few days, after that …
It was silly, he knew, and once he was more familiar with the interface he would no doubt feel more comfortable using it in the heat of the moment, but not now, not yet.
To his side Neal smiled at the onlookers around him. The small group was now walking through the doors into the main lobby of the UN headquarters, a mighty edifice, a monolith, in the space odyssey sense of the word. The broad space was well accustomed to dignitaries of all manners and levels of power and prestige, but in the current,
tense political spectrum few stars shone brighter than Neal Danielson’s, and most stopped and stared as he swept past, his small entourage drawing nearly as many stares as the man himself.
There was the former presidential chief of staff, now Neal’s right-hand man, and the two attendants he had managed to minimize himself to, though only because they were both connected via their links to his already hundred-strong team of administrators.
Then there was Madeline and Ayala, there to help with negotiations around material sourcing, both for the remaining work at District Three and for Ayala’s growing security and policing operations.
And finally there were the two martial members of the group, there in part for protection, but also amply capable of contributing to the coming talks. First there was John Hunt, chosen over Quavoce to attend because of his less checkered history on Earth. He was matched on the other flank by the second of Minnie’s Phase Eight avatars, a butch-looking female figure who would not have looked out of place on the East German Women’s Track and Field team.
They made an odd sight and Neal relished the hushed silence that came over the auspicious space as they made their way to the main auditorium.
He leaned over to Madeline. “It’s going to be an interesting few days,” he said with a smirk and she smiled, though she was less entertained by the prospect of tangling with the practiced bureaucrats they had come to meet than he was.
- - -
“Senator, that does not, I hope you’ll agree, change the fundamental point at hand,” Jim said, placatingly.
“But of course it does, Mr. Hacker, of course it does. The people of the world have suffered enough. No matter what is agreed in subcommittee over the course of this summit, I still think the need for secrecy remains. And it remains of paramount importance.”
It was a view shared by the majority of the representatives in the room, but not all.
“Madame Chairman, if I may?” came the translated voice of the French president. The man had been among their greatest supporters before their move toward independence, but one of their greatest opponents since. Neal knew the man to be reasonable, but also to have his limits, limits Neal had tested to breaking point over the last few months.
With permission granted by the chairman, the French leader took the proverbial floor. “Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished allies, we talk of protecting our citizens as we most certainly must. But this discussion presumes that we can, in fact, keep such a thing a secret for much longer …”
As the president spoke, Neal nodded to himself and opened his connection to Minnie.
Neal: ‘our french friend is right, minnie.’
Minnie: <¿he is?>
Neal: ‘he is. please get me statistics on the flare points. i need dates on when the armada’s engines will become visible in the night sky, both via telescope and with the naked eye.’
Minnie:
Neal: ‘i know that, minnie. we have looked at them together. i meant with publicly accessible telescopes. ones not controlled by the very governments we are here to meet with. and while you are figuring that out, get me madeline. ¿is she online?’
Madeline: ‘of course i am, neal.’
Neal: ‘shit, minnie. don’t do that.’
He felt Madeline’s amusement as Minnie explained herself.
Minnie:
Neal: ‘yes, minnie. thank you, i remember.’
And now he felt Minnie’s amusement at having surprised him. She was more than capable of filtering his conversation in real-time based on her own ever-growing understanding of his preferences and the list of people he did and did not trust. But on such lists Madeline was without many equals and as such Minnie had enjoyed the chance to make her little joke.
Machine humor, he thought. What a hoot.
Minnie:
Neal: ‘you can start by telling me what it is.’
Madeline: ‘it will be roughly twelve months from now, that is when the light from their engines will reach a brightness that will be viewable with enthusiast-level telescopes.’
Neal: ‘great, perfect. madeline, would you mind asking for the floor and sharing that data with our friends here so we can set that as our target date and get back on track. it is, after all, when the cat will be truly out of the bag. though anyone that doesn’t figure out something a tad unusual is going on when new moon one brings her cargo back in ten month’s time would have to be living under a pretty damn big rock.’
Madeline: ‘¿not to be persnickety, neal, but when new moon comes back, won’t we all be living under a pretty big rock?’
Madeline sent her own amusement at her little pun to the group and was pleasantly surprised when Minnie replied with a ripple of laughter, as well. You never knew what jokes would resonate with her machine consciousness.
Neal, notably, did not reply.
Madeline: ‘… but i digress. i can certainly do that, neal. i’ll wait for the french president to finish then ask for the floor.’
Neal: ‘much appreciated, madeline. minnie, please get a print out of the date and some supporting data to one of jim’s lackeys outside and ask them to print copies for distribution.’
Minnie:
Neal and Madeline felt Minnie’s pride at the statement. Great, thought Neal, the most capable artificial mind on earth, using one of the most deadly and advanced machine bodies in their arsenal, and it was making copies. He had managed to create the world’s most expensive intern.
- - -
Eleven months. They settled on eleven more months. They would make the announcement then, as a united front.
Neal didn’t think anyone in the room genuinely believed the secret could be kept that much longer, and indeed he had long since had Jim task one of his teams with maintaining an up-to-date press packet on the subject for when it almost inevitably broke on its own.
For now, though, that allowed them to focus on the task at hand. To focus on the negotiations: the long, complicated, tedious negotiations. Thank the lord or the devil, Neal did not know which, for Jim Hacker.
“Where are we, Jim?” said Neal, as they walked away from the main delegate floor after the opening session.
“We are en route to conference room 725b, for a meeting with the Korean delegation.”
Neal: ‘¿minnie, shouldn’t madeline be handling this one?’
Madeline: ‘no, neal, i shouldn’t.’
Neal cursed Minnie’s sense of humor once more, and the group dispersed to their various meetings and negotiations. It was going to be a long day.
- - -
Lim Min-soek stood at attention, as he always did. The guard detail he was a part of was spread out across the complex with the various parts of the Korean delegation, but he had been tasked, along with one other, to guard the conference room. As they were well inside the complex it was, in fact, a fairly risk-free posting, but for Lim it carried as great a risk as could be imagined.
For Lim this posting carried the risk of impending death. He knew what his orders were. Not orders, demands. But he was only to carry them out were he to have a clear opportunity. An opportunity he had hoped he would not be given.
An opportunity that now lay only moments away.
- - -
Neal and Jim approached the elevator.
“Jim, I hear you, but I really think you can handle it, just make something up and send it. Your German is better than you give yourself credit for.” He smiled and Jim nodded.
“Sure, Neal. I’ll get right on it. No risk of international incident there.”
“Good,” Neal laughed, “I’m glad you see it my way.”
Their friendship had been a rocky journey, but in the end it had only been solidified by it. They had been colleagues, then rivals, then almost combatants, and now as friends and coworkers, Neal finally saw why so many had come to rely on Jim over the years. He was a better chief of staff than even Minnie could be; he was a superlative organizer and a diplomat with few peers. Where Minnie was still learning the human condition, Jim was a master of it, and he was proving invaluable as they navigated these complex times.
“OK, now, Kim Kwon will be your prime contact during this meeting,” explained Jim as the elevator doors closed and they began to rise. “Though he is not the most influential in the room, I am certain he will be in a matter of months when the next regional elections take place, and his emergence as a candidate for party leader becomes clear. Park Jae-won, who will try to run the meeting, is both on the decline in terms of power, and an active detractor when it comes to our efforts.”
Neal nodded as they exited the elevator and started down the corridor. Despite his jocular attitude, he really did appreciate the grave importance of this work, and his role in it.
“The main landmine here will be, of course, our stance on China and North Korea. They will be pushing for support with border control and will assume from recent events in Beijing that you are onboard with a more hardline approach to that issue.”
Neal nodded again, appreciatively. Certainly it would be hard not to see his attack on the Politburo headquarters as anything other than a very hard line. But Jim was not done.
