State Tectonics

by Malka Older

  “And…” Taskeen frowns. “I’ve heard that there will be null states involved?”

  “Oh, yes,” Maryam says. “It’s supposed to include a range of stakeholders: quite a few government representatives, including several seats designated for small governments or coalitions of small governments; one from the Supermajority; and Information. The null states representatives will only have an observer status, but even so their inclusion offers sort of a side benefit, I think, as far as Nejime’s concerned. Information is interested in improving relations outside of micro-democracy, and they saw the Secretariat as an opportunity to create open, consistent communication of some kind. That’s why they’re making such a big deal out of the non-debate tomorrow to introduce the null states representatives, even though no one here is voting on them.”

  Taskeen harrumphs. “Well. I suppose it is some kind of evolution. A bit tepid, though, no?”

  “I don’t know,” Maryam says, a little defensive. “It’s an experiment.”

  “Experimenting is good,” Taskeen says. “The system was always supposed to evolve. But this might be too little and too late.”

  “Nejime is worried it might be,” Maryam says before she can stop herself.

  “Then she should have done more, sooner,” Taskeen says, snappish again. Then she smiles. “Next time,” she winks, “we need to build it in to the code: tectonic shifts in the structure every fifteen years or so. Enforced adaptation!”

  They laugh together, and then Maryam starts the process of leaving.

  “I suppose we’ll be able to keep in touch better now, after Rajiv’s helpful training,” Taskeen says, standing to walk her to the entrance.

  “Mm,” says Maryam noncommittally. Taskeen’s tone is odd, and Maryam isn’t sure whether she was being sarcastic or not.

  “Just in case,” Taskeen says, and Maryam hesitates, looking back at her from the dimness of the entrance hall. “I noticed that all the tricks he taught us? They would make it easy for someone who knew those tricks to find our communications.”

  “I suppose … easier at least, if not easy…”

  “Just in case,” Taskeen repeats, “we should have another protocol. In case you ever have reason to doubt.”

  To doubt Rajiv? Or to doubt Information? “Like what?” Maryam asks cautiously.

  “Well, we could always use agreed-upon plazas and code phrases, like he suggested, different ones that he doesn’t know about. I’m pretty sure I can set up a simple interface allowing me access to those plazas with the tools I have here.”

  Maryam suspects that interface is already coded and running.

  “Or we could set up an unmarked channel. It’s something I’ve toyed with before. I’ll show you.” Taskeen sits down again and opens an interface to Information on her computer. Maryam hesitates, then drifts back into the sitting room, since she’s obviously not leaving yet.

  The channel they create is not impossible to find, but once they’ve stripped all the connection and location data from its nodes, making each accessible only from the other, it is well hidden. The connection won’t appear on any search; it won’t even be apparent to the programs that distribute data packets, so Information won’t use it to send anything other than what they create. It would be possible for someone to stumble upon it by entering random locations, but the odds against that are astronomical.

  “There,” Taskeen says when they’re done. “Doesn’t that feel more secure?”

  Only, Maryam thinks, if it’s Information you’re trying to hide from.

  CHAPTER 14

  On the flight back to Doha, Maryam reflects that she doesn’t still feel confident with clandestine work. If anything, Rajiv’s training made clear how limited her abilities are. She can think through the approaches Rajiv gave them, but it’s the sort of thing that you need to be able to do without thinking for it to be effective. It has to become second nature, and the only way for that to happen is through lots and lots of practice, which Maryam hopes she will never have.

  It did open her eyes to how easy it is for the people who do have that practice—Roz’s friend Mishima springs to mind—to maneuver undetected. Maryam had always believed Information to be basically omniscient, at least in the public sphere. She never found this to be particularly disturbing, maybe because she was so young when Information was established, and surveillance was already near universal before that. With so much data out there, she generally assumes that nobody would be looking at the details of her life unless they had a good reason to; on the other hand, the intel was there, neatly stored and (with a few exceptions) equally accessible to all in case there turned out to be a reason to confirm any of it later.

  Now she realizes that there have always been plenty of interstices for people to slip through if they want to. Rajiv told her he could walk from one end to the other of Dhaka—or pretty much any other city in the world—unseen, simply by studying the feed placement and weaving from side to side like a drunkard with sways timed to avoid them. It seemed obvious once he said it, and yet it had never occurred to Maryam that people, except the most desperate and gifted of novela-style criminals, would go to those lengths.

  She thinks again about Mishima. She’s only met her a few times, but she’s heard enough about her from Roz to have an idea of what she gets up to beyond the public persona—or used to. Maryam knows that for most of her colleagues and peers Mishima is the candidate of choice to represent Information in the Secretariat. She’s even heard the camaradas rave about her “radical physicality.” But thinking of the facility she must have evading surveillance makes Maryam somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of her promoting Information in the Secretariat. Not that she wants to vote for Nougaz instead.

  To avoid thinking about that, she follows thoughts of Mishima, which lead her to the Nakia Williams. Remembering her last meeting with Roz, Maryam decides to use the flight—plane instead of crow; she has no patience for extraneous stops on this return trip—to read up on the trial. It is not going well. There is clarity that Information has presented a negative view of AmericaTheGreat, and even though all the negative statements made were true, accusations are being made about the overall tenor and the lack of balance. From what Maryam reads, Williams hasn’t made much headway defending herself. It’s a little scary, because Maryam can imagine all too easily how difficult that defense must be. She wonders if Williams has started to question herself, doubt her own version of the events and her motivation in doing what she did.

  Even scarier, though, are the comments.

  * * *

  Fortunately for everyone concerned, Mishima hasn’t had to do much campaigning. While government spokespeople and heads of state regularly hold rallies and angle for favorable coverage from news compilers, the Secretariat positions are untested and technocratic, and individual posturing has been limited. Still, Mishima is aware that the factions of Information behind her candidacy—Nejime’s clique, primarily—aren’t above political stratagems, and every once in a while they ask for her cooperation. Today she’s supposed to do an interview with an influential compiler, which means allowing the compiler’s editor to follow her through her day.

  “It’s to give the voters a sense of you as a person,” Nejime’s assistant Zaid said while cajoling her into it. “That behind all the glamour, you have a normal life.”

  “What glamour?” Mishima grunted, but she agreed on the condition that Ken and Sayaka be kept out of it. This is like trying to use a cocktail umbrella in a typhoon, given how public Sayaka’s life has been so far, but she figures not sanctioning her exposure is the least she can do for the kid. Still, as the compiler argued to Zaid—and Zaid, apologetically, passed on to her—she could do something to reference family commitments without involving her family. Maybe she can go shopping and buy some toddler food or something. “Also, they would love to follow you on a speedblading routine.”

  Mishima decides to go swimming that day instead, subjecting them to a hundred repetitive
laps. “I’m afraid the rest of my day is going to be pretty boring for you,” she says with satisfaction. “I spend most of my time studying issues and concerns on Information.” She’s walking them toward a café where she works occasionally, since she doesn’t want them in her house.

  “Oh, that’s fine,” whispers the editor, who is intimidated by Mishima but not intimidated enough. “We’ll montage what you’re working on; it’ll be great.”

  Anticipating this, Mishima has prepared a day of work that a) doesn’t point at anything the wider public can’t know; b) brings up issues she thinks the wider public should pay more attention to; and c) looks more or less productive. After an hour and a half of comparing oversight structures in the governmental and private sectors over the past three centuries, she’s bored, resentful, and has run through her prescheduled tasks. She’s never felt such a strong urge to look up Nakia’s case, or check on Amran’s progress with the shady spying gig. Instead, she calls up the latest polling: not for the Secretariat, which would look desperate or egomaniacal, but for the government election.

  Policy1st is still trending upward relative to the leaders, although not nearly steeply enough to win them the Supermajority. 888 is starting to plateau, leaving an opening for PhilipMorris or one of the other top corporates. To her annoyance, Mishima notices that even Liberty is gaining ground. How can people forget so quickly? she wonders, and considers requesting a poll specific to that question—do they not remember the last election? Do they still believe Liberty’s promises? Do they not care as long as they get their discounted Nestlé products?—before she remembers that anything she orders will be seen as politically motivated. Maybe she can get Roz or someone else to do it? Although in light of Nakia’s trial, she doesn’t want to expose anyone else to accusations of partisanship.

  “Okay,” Mishima says, standing up. “Time to stretch our legs.”

  The editor rises gracefully, her camera handler slightly less so. Shopping, thinks Mishima. Family commitments. She walks them from the café toward a wet market she’s been to a few times before. She and Ken rarely shop for groceries, relying on takeaway, delivery, and regular cooker supply services, all cheap and simple in Free2B and in Saigon more generally. In point of fact, Mishima’s familiarity with this market relies on the food-truck belt encircling it. Passing through that zone, she gets a wave from the woman from the Thai arepas truck; a few steps later, the pissaladière vendor calls a greeting, which Mishima answers through gritted teeth. Hopefully the editor won’t notice the utter lack of such rapport with the produce sellers.

  Not that they won’t recognize her. Everybody recognizes her. Mishima is wearing a check scarf wrapped around the bottom of her face and large sunglasses of the so-called stealth variety, but that just means a delay of one to four seconds before oncoming pedestrians go through the standard expression spectrum: hesitation, recognition, awe. But only the people she’s interacted with are likely to speak to her. Most people stare for another two to three seconds and then scramble to get out of her way.

  As Mishima enters the market proper, she convinces herself that this outing is good for her, regardless of the news-zombies following along. She could be more … domestic is not the right word, but, say, proactive about managing household tasks. It feels virtuous to be out here, squeezing mangos and smelling passion fruit—or is it supposed to be the other way around? She frowns, and considers a jackfruit; Sayaka loves them, but cutting them up at home is such a pain. Better to order the pre-peeled version.

  Mishima is taking her time among several varieties of leafy greens, hoping that her deliberative moue makes it look like she’s judging freshness by some traditional intuitive trick instead of looking up the names and usages on Information, when she becomes aware of a shift in the clutter of sound around her. Without conscious decision, Mishima refocuses, pulling up the news alerts. The first glance reminds her of what she had managed to forget: the null-state debate.

  It is not actually a debate, although the rhyme and the parallelism have proved irresistible to most news compilers, and so far Information is letting it slide. All the null states have been offered observer status in the Secretariat. Their processes for choosing their representatives are their own, unpoliced and unremarked on by Information. However, given the micro-democratic population’s lack of familiarity with null states and the newness of the Secretariat, the powers that be decided a public introduction would be useful, while the news compilers inexplicably felt they needed more drama during an election season.

  It is a non-event event, not really part of the election, not really a debate, and Mishima had decided not to pay any attention to it. She is trying to concentrate on issues and pivot points, and not the noisy superficia of the election.

  And of course, the one event she decides not to watch may have the most impact of all. When Mishima tunes in to the audio, she doesn’t hear platitudes about civilization or peace or diplomacy but a recorded, repeating statement cloaked in the otherworldly eeriness of voice distortion: Why don’t you get to vote on those with the real power Why don’t you get to vote on those with the real power Why

  “Anarchy,” Mishima breathes, and then presses her mouth closed, hoping no one, in person or via camera had an angle on reading her lips, nabbing that stupid assumption as quickly as it slipped out of her. No time to check. She pulls up the Information intranet, scans through what is known about this crisis:

  broadcast interrupted from the null states debate

  reroute! if the algorithm isn’t doing it do it manually, use brute force if necessary to find a clear path

  HOW is this possible?

  negative, looks like they’ve cut the connection from the conference center

  ohhh the Chinese are going to be pissed about this

  cut it how?

  status within the hall?

  data transfer station on Gozo not responding

  another attack?

  evacuating personnel from—

  Mishima hears an echo to the monotonous repetition of the audio statement and whirls around. Someone in the market has thrown up a large projection of the feed from the debate. It’s becoming a trend when there are disasters or big news events, and while Mishima understands the impulse—we’re all in this together—she also finds it incredibly annoying. It does draw her attention to something: there’s a weird undercurrent to the sound that she thought was the murmur of people around her reacting. Now that it’s magnified, she recognizes a separate audio track repeating at a lower volume. She isolates it and listens: Information. Omission. Spying. Lying. Information. Omission. Spying. Lying.

  It’s eerie, almost subliminal, and precisely targeted to reinforce the most common villainous qualities assigned to Information. Mishima focuses back in on her feeds, her data, all the threads she knows how to pull. The current theory is an attack on a data distribution center was used to hijack the feed, which shouldn’t be possible because of network redundancy. There’s no intel yet from the conference center. For all they know, there could have been an attack there too, on people as well as data. If null-state representatives are killed or even hurt during an Information-hosted event … Mishima remembers the Anarchy attack during the last election, the ghostly persistence of the remote-controlled crow, the bomb … She should be there, like she was then. She should be at the null-state debate, or on call somewhere nearby. They would have sent her to the distribution center as soon as the attack was launched; she could have stopped it, reconnected the communications, maybe captured one of the attackers …

  “… some sort of problem with the null-state debate,” Mishima hears. “We’re here with Secretariat representative candidate Mishima as we learn more details about this devastating attack. What do you think is going on? What can be done to prevent these attacks in the future?”

  It’s the editor, of course, and from the sound of it, she’s gone live—that’s the only explanation for her slight delay in coming to harass Mishima. She hears
the questions, but they are stupid questions, and she shouldn’t be here, squeezing fruit in this market so that the fucking voters can get a fucking sense of her as a person. She should be there, helping. Fighting. She hears the silence stretch, hears it extend beyond the length of dead air that should be allowed in a broadcast, then twice that. If she were there, at the site of the crisis, Mishima would know what to do, and even if she didn’t know, she would be doing it. Here, she can’t even figure out what to say.

  * * *

  Whenever Roz has been home for them, she and Suleyman have watched the debates, and now this null-state non-debate, together. This event is taking place on a floating conference hall off the coast of Malta, in order to avoid having to decide on a government or null state to honor with the headache. It falls in the late morning, Doha time, but Roz has been working from home a lot as her pregnancy advances. Suleyman massages Roz’s feet, which he swears is what has kept her ankles from swelling, and Roz talks at the projection and sometimes to him, although she makes sure all the questions are rhetorical. Roz knows Suleyman isn’t as engaged with global politics as she is, and although she finds it slightly baffling, she tries not to hold it against him. Whenever he says something that reveals his ignorance of the intricacies of Supermajority-level intrigue, she reminds herself of every old saw she’s heard about the importance of local government; Suleyman’s grasp of the politics in his home town is deep, subtle, and canny.