by Malka Older
“Understatement,” coughs Mishima. “Outright lie. If you were a politician, they would annotate you.”
“Plenty could still happen before the vote. It’s not over. Nobody expected Policy1st to win the last election.”
“If it’s going to take two recounts due to sabotage and lies, I don’t want the position,” Mishima says, rolling her eyes, and then realizes she is shading one of Ken’s proudest moments. Contrite, she turns the conversation away from herself. “What about you? Did you decide anything?” She’s pleased at herself for framing it so tactfully, as if it were entirely his decision, rather than asking whether Geoff Forth has fired him outright. While he’s answering, she flips open the polls—not her own, just the government side—and checks: Policy1st is still significantly behind, 888 still ahead, with PhilipMorris between them.
Ken fidgets. “Geoff hasn’t said anything, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t decided to fire me.”
“Not the best communicator.”
“The thing is, this idea of Policy1st’s, the new way of working with other governments—I mean, it’s fascinating, right?” Ken’s face is alight with excitement. “It could be a whole new evolution of democracy—it could be what comes next.” The phrase is a part of their ongoing conversation about the increasingly precarious future of micro-democracy.
Mishima considers. “There are two weeks left in the election. Would you want to work for Policy1st after the campaign ends?”
Ken tries to imagine it, but Policy1st is so different from Free2B, and has grown so much since he worked for them, that he’s not sure what it would be like. Are they a giant, tedious bureaucracy now, like so much of Information? Have they managed to cling to their ideals through the morass and temptations of the Supermajority? “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe I’ll talk to Xavier about it. But…” He ponders. “I think I’m ready for a change.” Maybe it’s wounded pride, but since his last conversation with Geoff, Free2B has come to seem intolerably provincial to him.
“Then do it,” Mishima says immediately. “You should talk to Geoff, though. Just because that bridge is a little singed doesn’t mean you have to burn it down.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“Fuck this bridge,” Mishima says.
* * *
In between checking election prep and fishing around Information for hints about disintegrating tourist guides with non-Information hints, Maryam goes back and rereads all the background intel she compiled on Taskeen before meeting with her the first time.
Most of it she knew even before Nejime suggested Taskeen Khan was the person to talk to about Information infrastructure. Born and brought up in Dhaka, higher education in Chennai, Bangalore, and la Ciudad de México—of course, the Spanish. Then positions, sequentially, with Google, Facebook, and the United Nations. Most of the founding Information staff worked for at least one of those, but Taskeen hit the triumvirate, and was a part of that core early group at the UN who not only came up with the idea but did most of the work to get it up and running.
Maryam falls into a daydream about what it must have been like for those early adopters: while the geopolitical system fell apart around them, they chose to run with a radical revision of the world order that was technically and politically unimaginable at the time. She has read books about the establishment of Information, of course, played through the interactives, seen some crappy films, but none of them were convincing about how it happened: how they decided, Yes, this time, we’re really going to burn it all down; how they managed to create enough momentum to reach critical mass. Did they imagine the behemoth they were creating? Did they suspect, in those turbulent, nuclear days, that the Pax Democratica would hold for a quarter of a century?
Reluctantly, Maryam turns back to her suspicions. She runs a quick program to look for any connections between Taskeen and any of the Information staff who disappeared, but it’s inconclusive. There were overlaps when Taskeen visited Hubs where those staff worked, but none since Taskeen retired five years ago, and nothing to suggest she met with those specific people out of the several hundred who would work in a medium-sized Hub. Maryam tries to check the sanatorium’s visitor log, but of course that’s not available on Information. She thinks of writing to Saleha to ask her, but that seems unnecessarily invasive. Maryam can easily imagine Saleha casually mentioning it to Taskeen over a cup of tea and some laddoo. Grumbling—it’s late, and it’s been a long day, and Maryam doesn’t like spying on her heroes, even when they might be traitors—she sets up a face-matching scan to run on the feeds nearest the door of the sanatorium over the past five years.
If she’s lucky she might get a result back before the election.
At least Núria is back.
* * *
Mishima exits the privacy booth and heads for the bar, an icy structure with built-in condensation as part of the new “design cool” aesthetic. She orders a bourbon, planning to spend her flight in drunken oblivion.
She is on her third tumbler and not too drunk to notice when a woman slides into the seat beside her. Mishima glances over, groans, and orders another drink.
“It’s been a while,” the woman says. She’s older than Mishima and dresses like it, in a stuffy wool twist dress and itchy-looking legwear.
Thank goodness for cool design, Mishima thinks, and then realizes she said it out loud.
“I’m flying to Baotou from here,” the woman says mildly. “I enjoyed your performance at the debate.”
Touché. This time, Mishima manages to keep her thoughts to herself. “Glad somebody did.” She drinks. “I suspect you enjoy how it benefits you more than out of aesthetic or intellectual appreciation.”
“It does not in the least diminish you in our estimation,” the woman says. Mishima has actively avoided learning this woman’s name, calculating that knowing more about her and her position of power within China’s null-state regime will not make any essential change in her decision not to listen to her recruitment attempts. “Filling a seat in Information’s latest example of political showmanship would be a poor use of your abilities. With us, you could be using your talents to the utmost, not hiding them.”
Mishima drinks. Sometimes, it’s easier to ignore than to respond.
“You know your world order is falling apart,” the woman says softly. “You must have seen this coming. The sooner you distance yourself, the less likely it is you will be hurt in the collapse.”
Mishima drinks. “There’s a lot of distance that doesn’t include you,” she says, and immediately regrets allowing that much of the premise. Lounge access isn’t worth dealing with this. She taps in her payment, gets off the barstool, and wanders toward her gate.
CHAPTER 18
By the time Mishima gets home, Ken has a new job: Deputy Liaison for Semi-Autonomous Sub-Governments for Policy1st.
Mishima sees, her anger dulled because she expected it, that they’ve played him exactly right: yes, he’s disappointed that the job isn’t high in the campaign hierarchy, but it has an important-sounding title and is in the area he’s excited about. By this point, he’s talked himself into believing he was aiming too high and that he doesn’t care about status anyway, it’s about the work, and he’s barely on the near side of ebullient. Mishima is happy to see him happy, but there’s a bitter aftertaste to watching him settle, and she gets herself a beer and loses focus several times while he’s telling her about it. Why can’t she convince him he deserves more?
“Besides, they haven’t hired the Chief Liaison yet.” He doesn’t say it, but there’s clearly some hope, probably dangled by Vera or whoever he talked to, that he can slide up into that job. But if there was any chance he would get that position, why wouldn’t they just hire him for it? “I have to go to Copenhagen next week for orientation,” he says with a bit of a scoff: what can they teach him about working for Policy1st?
“It will be an exciting time to be there.” Or depressing, if the semi-autonomous gambit doesn’t
pay off. But whatever, elections are exciting, even when you lose.
Except the ones you don’t want to win.
Before she can mope too much she gets a ping.
“I have to go to the Hub tomorrow,” she says, scanning the message. “Nejime’s in town.” Mishima says it casually, but for Nejime to travel out here almost certainly means something big.
“Tomorrow, though?” Ken asks, with a suggestive smile. He reaches out for her almost-empty beer bottle and puts it on the counter as he leans in. “You’re still free tonight?”
“Tomorrow,” Mishima confirms, just before his lips meet hers. She flicks on the audio for Sayaka’s room: nothing but quiet breathing. She turns it off again. “Tomorrow.”
* * *
Maryam and Núria are lying in bed, watching a projection of the rock-climbing at the Olympics. “Listen to them,” Maryam says. “One athlete from Resilient Tuvalu wins and the announcers can’t stop yammering on about how that proves it’s not all about money, how the games aren’t unfairly tilted toward the big governments. Just because one supremely talented person is able to break through. So hypocritical.”
“Oh, yeah,” yawns Núria. “You know all about tiny governments.”
Maryam opens her mouth, then closes it again. Núria snuggles closer and kisses her, as though to soften what she said, but doesn’t add anything. Annoyed, Maryam decides to make something out of it. “Tell me, then. What’s it like?”
Núria pulls back a little and tilts up on her elbow to answer. “You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if all the people in the small governments didn’t have such a chip on their shoulder about it.”
Maryam has to laugh. “Case in point?” she asks, eyebrows up.
Núria laughs too. “I suppose. Sorry, amor.” She kisses Maryam again. “Sometimes, it feels like we’re model victims. Everybody wants to say a word for us, even when they don’t know anything about it. But I was thinking about my parents.”
“I’d love to visit your centenal sometime,” Maryam says. What she really means is meet your parents. They’ve had dinner with Maryam’s father several times, twice when Maryam was still living in Doha and Núria’s visits coincided with her father’s, and once when he came to see them in La Habana, but Maryam has never met, or even been projection-introduced to, Núria’s parents.
“There’s nothing to see in my home centenal,” Núria says, yawning again as if to emphasize how boring it is there. “Just a bunch of small hamlets where everyone has the same three or four apellidos. The food is unremarkable, there are no beaches. Half the population is convinced that we should join EsteladaBlava”—the largest Català nationalist government—“and the other half are rabid about maintaining our independence as a single-centenal government that gives no fucks about anything and that nobody gives a fuck about. Politics gives them something to talk about after long days of gold-farming or content-production or making cava.”
“I like cava,” Maryam offers.
“Who doesn’t like cava?” Núria answers. “Other than the champagne producers and one-Spain fetishists, of course.” She sighs, and flips the channel to randomizer; the Olympic compiler had fallen into a long run on the tragi-triumphant backstories of the two leading climbers, and if there’s one thing Maryam and Núria agree on, it’s that they hate that stuff.
“How about Barcelona?” Maryam suggests after a few minutes watching a cooking show, a chase scene, a snippet of intense dialog, and a pride of lazing lions in successive three-second bursts. Núria’s reluctance to introduce her to her family, or even show her her home centenal, is starting to make her queasy.
“Oh, Barcelona’s much better,” Núria says. “It’s so cosmopolitan. Even the nationalist centenals there are completely different! But you know that—you must have been there, right?”
“Once or twice when I was a teenager. But I meant maybe we should go there for a holiday.”
Núria groans. “I mean, if you insist. But we both travel so much. Don’t you think you’d rather stay here? Or go somewhere nearby? There’s so much to explore around this region.”
Maryam feels a ping on her work frequency. She’s about to take it in bed—it’s fine for Núria to hear her half of the vast majority of work calls—when the protocol requests her code key. She takes a deep breath. “I’ll be right back,” she says. “Sorry, work stuff.” Before Núria can respond, she’s out and closing the bedroom door softly behind her.
She vacillates about where to take the call but ends up in the kitchen with a mug of water. “What’s going on?”
It’s Nejime on the other end. “Maryam. We need someone to go talk to Halliday.”
“Halliday?” Maryam was expecting a coding job, more attacks on distribution centers, maybe something about the tourist guides. “Halliday?” It’s a name she knows well, but it’s so out of context and it’s been so long since it was important that it takes her a few seconds to place it. “Cynthia Halliday? Isn’t she in…” She stops.
“Guantánamo,” Nejime says. “Yes. Rather convenient from your current location.”
Maryam moves from the counter to lean on the windowsill. She can see the sharp line where the city lights end at the edge of the Caribbean. She would like to open the window to get some breeze and listen for the surf, but she can’t risk someone in a neighboring apartment overhearing. “What does she have to do with anything?”
Nejime grimaces, unusual for her; she must hate talking about this stuff via projection. “We received intel during the secession threat two and a half years ago that Heritage had an off-Information comms channel that Halliday was in charge of, but we were never able to identify it.”
There’s a pause, and Maryam stands up and faces into the dim kitchen again. “This is about that tunnel Roz found?”
“We haven’t been able to decrypt any of the comms yet. We’re hoping that we can leverage our knowledge of the tunnel to get her to talk.”
“This is not what I do,” Maryam says. “I have no idea how to … get someone to talk about something that they don’t want to talk about.”
“We’re hoping she’ll want to talk after all this time,” Nejime tells her. “And you know the latest thinking in terms of comms vulnerabilities and opportunities better than most.” Better than anyone, actually. Except Taskeen Khan. “You’ll be able ask the right questions. And you’re believably not empowered to offer her anything; that’s important too.”
Maryam sighs with relief: at least she won’t have to deal with negotiations.
“There’s something else I’m not sure whether you’re aware of,” Nejime goes on. “At the time when this was going on—immediately before she became a fugitive, in fact—Halliday tried to kill Valérie Nougaz.”
Maryam can’t say anything.
“I’ve never been sure why Nougaz was such a compelling target for her.” Dully, Maryam registers that Nejime has switched to the singular. “It’s possible she was utterly nuts by that point, but I’m wondering if there’s an angle there.”
Maryam tries to clear her throat silently, which goes about as well as she expected it to. “Well,” she says. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
* * *
Amran knows the spying should be the cool part, but she is distracted by how excited she is about her content-design job.
Technically, that’s part of the spying, since it’s her cover identity and not everyone knows that she’s not really who she says she is. But at the office, she doesn’t have to look for intel or try to gauge what’s available on Information and what is secret. She just has to read scripts and think about stories, and that’s what her brain has been trying to do her entire life. The thought of the office—the jewel-toned workstations, the small staff of fascinating, complex content experts, and the endless, unfolding storyboards—fills her with energy when she wakes up in the morning.
Before and after office hours, she does what she thinks of as gateway spying: she doesn’t learn anything of interest, but it
buys her the chance to learn more about Opposition Research. At first, she doubts whether what she collects will be of value to them, because initially she learns nothing at all. She walks the streets of Ngara and the Central Business District and murmurs to herself, scribbling down in offline message drafts all the quirky neighborhood incidents and secret slang words she can remember. She’s not sure how this intel is useful to anyone, but most of it isn’t on Information, which was still getting started when she was growing up here, so it hits the minimum benchmark.
Within a few hours, Amran starts to feel uncomfortable about what she’s doing. She is literally selling her neighbors’ secrets to spies. She tells herself they aren’t particularly secret secrets: way back when, this was all open gossip, and today, it’s extremely old news.
It feels a little better when she thinks about it as a memorial to a community that no longer exists. In her childhood, Ngara was at least 50 percent Somali, part of a LittleMogadishu government cluster of five centenals extending into Eastleigh and Huruma. Demographics have shifted and the areas she strolls through are more mixed: a small Meru enclave, a larger but scattered population of Luo, and a persistent contingent of Somalis, along with an uncharacterizable mix of other tribes. Governance is divided among Liberty, 888, and Policy1st, with one remaining LittleMogadishu centenal, its streets besieged by pop-up ads from larger governments. Amran has never been a fan of LittleMogadishu—in principle, she’s a pluralist and a policy rationalist—but she still finds herself heartened when she checks the polls and learns that they hold a thin lead over Liberty in that centenal. They’re not even bothering to contest the others.
Amran knows that it’s all but inevitable for neighborhood demographics to change over time, and while her childhood was not unhappy, she doesn’t cherish her memories of the area enough to want to enshrine it forever. But thinking about all the bits of local trivia—the family that ran the shop on that corner, long gone; the holy man who used to mumble in the park; the restaurant everyone used to go to after mosque—Amran wonders if it would be such a bad thing to chronicle what the neighborhood was like, once upon a time. It occurs to her that such a guide—what did Vincent call it? A hyperatlas?—could speed the turnover process by making it easier for newcomers without clan ties to acclimatize to the neighborhood. That could affect economics—rent and housing costs, for example—as well as elections.
