State Tectonics

by Malka Older

  Of course, this has happened before. The detailed data Amran is recording now isn’t on Information, but back when Information was established, it suddenly offered vastly more intel on local neighborhoods than had previously existed. The next day at work, Amran goes on the office Information connection, which is purposely anonymized to encourage staff not to shirk potentially embarrassing searches on questions relevant to their narratives, and does some painful analysis. There’s a correlation/causation question mark in her results, but the pace of demographic change increases on average by six percent in the four years after Information comes online in any given area.

  So (Amran tells herself, musing over her faux content designer workspace), this is normal, nothing to feel guilty about. It’s all happened before; it’s a natural progression of technology.

  Clinging to that perspective, Amran has given Vincent three small articles, all of them historical. He’s accepted them without much comment, but also without much enthusiasm, and without any hints that Amran will soon be initiated into the secrets of his organization. She has to do more; she has to find something current that’s not on Information.

  So, she makes up some wink-wink-nudge-nudge excuse to be out of the office in the middle of the day and walks around Ngara. She has removed all of her usual filters and sees the world overlaid with more data than she can parse. She’s concentrating so hard on trying to figure out what is missing from the partially transparent words and numbers in her vision that when she sees a face she half-recognizes, she stares at it. Where did she see this person before? Still thinking about gaps in the data record, she stares so long that the familiar woman looks at her. Amran’s mouth widens into a slight smile, because surely the woman knows her too, and she doesn’t want to ignore her.

  The moment their eyes meet, Amran knows who it is. Of course that face looks familiar: she has practically memorized her file. She knows her age, her hometown. She knows that she was recruited to the Information office in Jaipur as an entry-level data cruncher, then moved to Goa, Bharatpur, Chennai, and Dhaka while climbing the ranks to data analyst before disappearing, presumably to a null state, two and a half years ago. The person she’s looking at is Gowri Misra. And Amran has just attracted her attention.

  She drops her gaze, but that current of recognition has already passed between them. She can feel Misra looking at her, wondering why she stared. Amran keeps walking, looking at her feet and then, because that seems too obvious, at the shop windows on her left. She feels Misra approach and resists the temptation to look up, blinking up a feed of their location instead. Misra looks at her curiously as they pass, but doesn’t make any move to address her, and Amran breathes a tiny sigh of relief that turns into frustration. That was her chance, an unexpected opportunity to crack the case, accomplish the mission, surprise everyone, and she pretty much made herself to the target. She brushes away the layers of data cluttering her vision and concentrates on the feed, and then the next one after that. Camera by camera, she follows Misra as she walks away. When she thinks there’s enough distance between them, Amran ambles into a U-turn that she hopes looks casual and follows on foot while she tracks her on Information feeds.

  * * *

  There are no commercial domestic airplane flights on the island, so Maryam travels to Guantánamo by crow. She boarded dreading what she assumed would be a pointless milk run of local deviations as the algorithm determined the most efficient route to get everyone to their chosen destinations. That is exactly what happens, but Maryam finds the meandering route surprisingly pleasant. Varadero, the first stop, is a mess of extravagant high-rises and pop-ups for beauty products and beach amenities with the occasional election ad thrown in, and Maryam has to close her eyes against the impending headache, but after that they are in the quieter interior. They stop in a quick series of small towns with names—Cascajal, Mordazo, Hatillo—whose automated welcome processes include proud paragraphs of history scrolling through everyone’s vision. Vendors tuned to the crow itineraries hover during their standard three-minute pickup/drop-off time, offering resealed coconuts of ropa vieja or (in a Liberty centenal) mentiritas, long chains of beads, fresh coffee beans. In Santa Clara they hear a professional pregonera calling out election ads; a few minutes after she finishes, Maryam realizes that it reminded her of Roz’s wall project, another strangely compelling antiquated comms technology. She scrabbles to find a clip to send her. There are more small villages after that—unpaved roads, viej@s calling out to each other in greeting, even once a man on horseback—and longer stretches of undeveloped land, the light green, tangly jungle of late twenty-first-century tropics. Skimming over the treetops is a reminder of the wildness that once was, and forms a soothing background to Maryam’s troubled thoughts.

  Those thoughts are mostly about the attempted assassination of her ex. It is an odd atemporal feeling: the attack was years ago, but she didn’t know about it then. If she had, she might have felt differently; that was not long after they broke up, the first time Nougaz was out in public with her new girlfriend. Maryam didn’t seriously want to kill Nougaz, but she often felt like she did. Now, with a new lover, and the schadenfreude of seeing Nougaz get dumped on the world stage, it is horrifying but distant. Yet there is still a tenderness in her heart around Valérie, a protectiveness for that spiky, competent bureaucrat.

  There’s also something about the assassination attempt that triggers admiration and annoyance in Maryam. She spent much of the previous night after Núria went to sleep huddled in the sala, watching and rewatching the vids of the event, seeing Valérie’s face, utterly cool and unaffected. Thinking about her icy response makes Maryam mutter “typical” out loud and then glance quickly at her fellow passengers to make sure nobody noticed. Then she imagines that impermeable exterior breaking down in private, and Vera comforting her. Maryam finds that scenario more tormenting than she would have hoped.

  Maryam has never put a lot of computation time into understanding internal politics or personal manipulation, and it is not until after they pass Holguín that she wonders why Nejime shared that particular piece of intel with her. Was it really necessary for the interrogation? Or was it an attempt to make her angry at the target? Or maybe the better question is: was she really chosen for this assignment because of her proximity to Guantánamo, or was it because of her proximity to Nougaz?

  * * *

  Misra disappears.

  More accurately, the feed does. There’s supposed to be a camera covering her; it was available to Amran a second ago, and now it’s gone.

  Amran slows down to think. If the feed went down on purpose, if it’s related to Misra, it might mean they know someone’s watching her, tracking her feed to feed. They might have already traced Amran. She slows more and remembers to glance at the shop windows to cover it. She didn’t think that was possible, blanking the feed from that specific camera on cue. Assuming it was intentional and not random, it must be so she would lose track of her quarry.

  Or it could be because Misra’s going to do something that they don’t want anyone to see.

  Or it could be to set up an ambush.

  Amran can see the missing section of sidewalk ahead of her in real life, even if she can’t distinguish it without checking for reference points on the surrounding feeds. It’s just as sunny and real as the rest of the street. It’s still two blocks away. Amran can’t make out details; she can’t pick Misra out from the other pedestrians, doesn’t know if she’s ducked into a doorway or a vehicle or started to run. She feels like she’s heading into a cave, dim and shadowy compared to the multi-perspective street around it.

  But that’s not even the worst of it. She hasn’t sent any messages to Information since she took on her undercover identity, but she knows the desk officers will be checking on her periodically, sometimes live, sometimes on recorded feeds. But if she’s attacked in that blind area, her backup at Information won’t know. If she’s bundled into a car or a building, they won’t be able to trace
her, not until her face hits another feed—and even then, it could take days or weeks of facial recognition scanning if they don’t know where to look.

  A block away now, Amran’s fingers twitch with the urge to send a message to Information, or ping anyone she knows. But that would only put her in more danger.

  The only way out is through, she tells herself as she nears the edge of the missing feed. It’s not true; it’s not remotely true. She could turn around and walk the other direction. But she’s already turned around once, when she circled back to start tailing Misra; if they’re looking for confirmation, a U-turn now will do it.

  Amran’s walking through the middle of her hometown, in broad daylight. She’s surrounded by people. She is not going to run away, even if this feels like running into a haunted house without a flashlight.

  Amran steps over the edge, watches herself disappear from the last feed. The sidewalk is unchanged beneath her feet. She doesn’t see Misra ahead, but she might just have moved out of sight.

  Or she could be peering through the window of the hotel on her left. Or waiting in the shadows of that overhang.

  Amran wonders if they are watching her now, to see what she does. She glances around, affecting unconcern, while the blank space that should show her as she walks hovers in the corner of her eye. She tries not to go too fast or too slow.

  And then she’s out of it. She can see herself on the next feed. Amran exhales slowly.

  Misra is nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  Mishima doesn’t go in to the Saigon Hub any more than she has to. It’s not that she doesn’t like it. It’s a perfectly nice building, but her apartment is nicer. Well, really, it has nothing to do with the building; she just doesn’t like people, especially when she’s working.

  That thought reminds her she meant to call Roz, one of the people she does like. She compromises by sending a message as she rides to the top floor, enjoying the increasingly spectacular views of the river (Hey! How are you? Remind me when you’re due? Everything okay? Ugh, so artificial. She hates messages almost as much as calls). Then she turns her attention to whatever’s coming.

  It is long past time for Mishima to admit it explicitly to herself: she doesn’t want to be Information’s representative to the Secretariat. The only thing she likes less than that idea, in fact, is campaigning to be Information’s representative to the Secretariat.

  She has known for a long time that she would rather be a spy than a candidate, but after China blew her cover, she didn’t have the choice. She got this far by reminding herself that she can’t slip into anonymity the way she used to. Occasionally she found herself thinking about facial reconstruction, but for the most part she was resigned to being absurdly famous.

  Now, though, she wants out. Even if she can’t be a spy, she definitely doesn’t want to be in politics. She just has to figure out how to tell Nejime.

  Fortunately, Nejime provides her with an excellent reason to quit. “Have you seen it?” she asks as soon as Mishima walks into her office.

  “Seen what?”

  Nejime grimaces, throws her a file, a short vid. “This hit an exponential pattern of replication in the plazas about an hour ago. No news compiler has picked it up yet, but they will soon.”

  Mishima opens the clip. It’s taken from a feed overlooking a street in—she checks the stamp—Brussels a few days ago. She watches a long-haired teenage girl stalk into the frame, followed a few steps behind by a man Mishima immediately recognizes as Gerardo Vasconcielos, former Information liaison to Policy1st and current candidate for representative to the Secretariat.

  “What…” Her question trails off as, in the projection, the teenager spins around and shouts at the man. “Just leave me alone!”

  “Calm down,” urges Gerardo through tight teeth.

  “You always say that, you don’t care at all what I think, you just want me to shut up so you can get on with your stupid, stupid work.”

  “I don’t—I’ll listen to you, fine; just express yourself in a more contained manner, please.”

  “Contained! That’s all you ever want me to be, contained, and reserved, and quiet, and pretty, to fit the perfect political family you wish you had!”

  “That’s not—I don’t—I never told you to be pretty!”

  Mishima winces. She was a teenager once and is anticipating raising one of her own in twelve years or so, and she knows a tactical error when she sees one.

  “Of course you did!” the girl screams, with the self-righteous triumph of someone who is never believed, and she throws up a small projection between them. It is at an angle to the camera, making it foreshortened, but it’s clear enough to make out that it’s a clip from another feed. The teenager has ramped up the volume to the loudest supported in public places. The nested clip clearly took place some time ago, because the girl is appreciably smaller. She and Gerardo—with less gray in his hair—are sitting on a bench in a park, and he has his arms around her. “Just be yourself,” he is telling the girl. “Smart, pretty, wonderful as you are.”

  The nested projection winks out, and Gerardo’s figure judders in the projection Mishima is watching, as if he is mastering the impulse to slam his head against one of the nearby stone pillars. “That’s not what I meant,” he manages to get out, in a sort of strangled yell. “Obviously! I didn’t say you had to be. I just—you know, when I was a kid, we didn’t have a perfect record of everything our parents had ever said to throw in their faces whenever we felt like it!”

  The teenager throws up her hands with a grunt of incoherent frustration and pounds away. Gerardo staggers after her, the beginning of an exclamation—his daughter’s name?—audible just as the clip ends.

  It takes Mishima some time to recover speech. All she can think about is that girl, how she must feel now, with her ugly, normal, blameless teenage emotions made public and weaponized against her father. Mishima imagines Sayaka in that position, closes her eyes. “I quit.”

  Silence. Mishima keeps her eyes closed while Nejime plans her attack.

  “There are larger issues…” Nejime begins, and Mishima opens her eyes and glares at her.

  Nejime pauses delicately. “The involvement of individual candidates in the election process may have been premature.” It’s not the first time a politician or a politician’s family has been caught in an unguarded moment on a public feed. However, despite the public’s stubborn focus on representatives—spokespeople, heads of state, centenal governors—such scandals are usually blunted by the fact that micro-democratic voters choose governments and their policies, not individuals and their personalities.

  “Premature?” Mishima’s rage is still burning. “You think humans will someday be enlightened enough to manage a competition for power without being completely vile about it?”

  “There’s no indication that this was a directed attack. As perfect as the staging is, it was probably just luck. Which is why it has been so successful in the viral sense; something scripted might not have had the same…”

  “Train-wreck quality?” Mishima suggests.

  “I was going to say je ne sais quoi, but yes. We don’t think it was propagated out of any motive other than rubbernecking.”

  “What are the impacts so far?” Mishima asks with a sort of resignation.

  “Not too much, honestly. His numbers have fallen a point or two, but he wasn’t doing that well to begin with. Perhaps that will dissuade others from trying the same tactics.”

  “Or maybe now they’ll go after the frontrunners instead,” Mishima points out. “Which should mean I’m safe.” She waits for Nejime to deny it, but data is data. The attack comes from a different angle.

  “If you’re not going to win anyway, you might as well ride out the race,” Nejime says.

  “How is Gerardo’s daughter?” Mishima asks.

  “She hasn’t left the house, so I don’t know. I was just going to call Gerardo and check in with him, if you’d like to join the call?
”

  “I don’t think it would be appropriate,” Mishima says, after consideration. “But please express my sympathy and dismay.” It occurs to her that, as a candidate, that’s something she can express publicly, too. She wonders if quitting the race because of the incident would be a stronger statement than staying in and using the platform to denounce this. Then it occurs to her that the latter could focus attention on her family. “I’m quitting,” she says again. “As you say, I’m going to lose anyway.”

  “Quit, then,” Nejime snaps. “But pretend not to.”

  “What?”

  “I want you undercover as yourself, a public candidate rather than a spy. Quitting would only draw attention to you, and that’s the last thing we need.”

  Mishima scoffs, but she can feel herself vibrating with the idea of being undercover, even as herself. “How could I get more attention than I already get?”

  “Doubts, then. As a candidate, you appear to be a known quantity, with specific motivations and interests.”

  “What is it you want me to do?” Mishima tries to sound noncommittal.

  “You are aware that former centenal 0924682 is holding a referendum on returning to micro-democracy?”

  “I’ve heard something about it,” Mishima says. Nejime waits while Mishima blinks up the basic data at eye level: an island in the Baltic Sea with dispensation for an under-100k centenal despite its proximity to the mainland, Saaremaa voted itself out of micro-democracy in the last election. Officially independent, they are largely seen as a client state or even de facto satellite territory of the Russian null state, whose borders are only a short crow flight away, separated by six centenals via ground transportation from the nearest coast. Saaremaa’s loss was downplayed after the last election—it is, after all, a tiny place, not even a full centenal’s worth of population—but Mishima remembers a lot of angsting within Information over whether it and the handful of other jurisdictions that chose to leave would turn out to be bellwethers.