A Family War: The Oligarchy - Book 1

by Stewart Hotston

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said.

  Johannes smiled, “I’ll go first, then.” He lowered himself onto the cushions with a flourish. Crossing his right leg over his left and leaning back with his arms stretched out along the ridge of the chair, he began. “Indexiv waited for you to leave the island and then attacked the 2nd Fleet. They are still fighting. They’ve also landed troops in North Africa, sealed their hegemonies in Europe and Central and Southern Asia. Right now we’re waiting for the next move, but all that seems to be on the cards is an invasion of Euros hegemonies in Europe and Africa.” His voice was disinterested. She noted his body language appeared anxious; he played with the condensation on the glass, rubbed the lobe of his left ear.

  “Why did they attack us?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “It’s a war. They mean to do what they wish. We knew they’d been arming, that they’d strike as soon as you’d left the island but no one thought to act on the information.” He looked furious. “The Amazon Fell wasn’t even armed; she was out there as a fucking showboat.” He sighed. “I told them not to object, to allow Indexiv to carry out its pogrom. As you know, I was overruled.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked slowly, marshalling her body to avoid giving away the clear signals of nervousness that he himself betrayed.

  He looked at her now as if seeing her for the first time. “Come on, girl, what they propose makes a lot of sense. Granted I think they’re a bit too enthusiastic, but have you read the statistics? Indexiv’s proposal is the best solution to the problem of surplus means of production I’ve encountered to date.” He looked at her, expecting acknowledgement.

  She nodded. Ngasi’s gaze in the smoke filled hangar overshadowed her thoughts.

  Satisfied, he continued. “It’s not a war we can win. I always said it was foolish not to accommodate them. Sending you off to meet with your friend Schmerl, that was our little act of defiance. Now we’re facing a hostile takeover. Your mother’s got her head in the sand, taken herself off on Sabbatical.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Helena. “You know my opinion of Edith.”

  He snorted. “So what happened?”

  She wanted to probe more, but it was a miracle that he had not already sent her off to one of the family refuges. Helena relayed from the end of the negotiations to her flight off the Fell. Johannes listened patiently. She was tempted to tell him about the package but for a reason she couldn’t identify held back.

  Helena could smell Oliver in the next room; a scent of metallic sweat, adrenalin. Why’s he afraid? Watching Johannes, it was clear to her that he had not noticed for himself.

  Johannes’s granite eyes regarded her calmly as he continued to argue the good sense of killing every normal human being on the planet. On instinct, Helena sharpened her focus; she read poise in his position, like a predator ready to move. His legs were uncrossed now, open, waiting to close the distance between them. Helena knew the signs even if she didn’t want to believe them. In spite of herself, she felt very vulnerable.

  Involuntarily she crossed her arms and turned away from him slightly. Before she could recover from feeling exposed he sat up and said, “Did Euros speak to you about the boy?” It was too casual, too easily asked.

  “No,” she said, careful to regulate her heartbeat and skin condition, glad she had trusted her instincts. “Why, should they have?”

  “No,” said Johannes, giving every appearance of being unconcerned. She knew he could be listening to someone else inside his head. Others could be listening to their conversation. If so, it was too dangerous a game to try to confirm her suspicion by tuning in. “No. Forget it; I just thought they might have informed you that Indexiv will probably try to get to him before we can. If you’re on your way to him, you should know what’s waiting for you.”

  “It had occurred to me that Indexiv would reach for the boy, but they haven’t mentioned anything,” she said carefully. “Surely he’s safe?” She was confident that she was better than Johannes at the game they were playing. Fifty years in the diplomatic corps provided familiar footing. She decided to move the conversation on.

  “Why do you ask?” she let her pupils dilate just enough to convey submission, childish curiosity.

  He’s always been overly paternal. Let’s see what we can do with that.

  “Hmm?”

  He’s not listening to me, thought Helena. She repeated her question. She was now certain he was listening for guidance on how to handle the situation. She hoped that whomever he was listening to did not have the training she was trying to put to use here.

  He could be listening to Oliver, said her AI, unbidden.

  “Okay, Helena, what I’m going to tell you can’t leave this room.” He smiled to himself. “You understand that, of course. The boy represents a substantial investment, and I’m reliably informed he is original research. He has no copies anywhere.”

  Helena shook her head; she did not understand his point. “Uncle, I don’t know anything about this boy. What is it about him that worries everyone so much?”

  “We’re not worried, sweetheart,” said Johannes, as if he was talking to an eight-year-old. “The boy, if developed the right way, could extend our advantages to all of society; everyone. At least those are the rumours.” His ignorance sounded forced. “Even I haven’t had access to the research which led to his creation by your father and his team.” She let her eyes open wide in shock, not hinting at whether she thought the possibility was good or bad.

  “With your father and his whole team missing, presumably not wishing to be found by any of us, this boy represents the only one of his kind. I have to say it’s a relief that you see things our way,” said Johannes, with satisfaction.

  “What?” she said.

  “Well, concern has been expressed that you sympathised with Euros’s wider feelings about the state of Normals. The research could be used to destroy society, to allow the undeserving a chance at longevity, to overthrow centuries-old hegemonies with no way of knowing what might come after. Finally, it could, of course, cement Euros’s position in the market. That is why Indexiv wants war. The public disclosure of his existence has forced their hand.”

  Helena thought it absurd that a single child’s existence could lead to the murder of millions.

  Johannes continued, “I said you were one of us; never had my doubts. A lot of people are worried right now, saying things they don’t mean. Trying to establish positions that will keep them safe after all this blows over. Everything has become so unpredictable.”

  “So,” he asked casually, “did Euros send you a package, anything at all, to do with the boy?”

  It’s sat in the hopper, thought Helena. Ten metres away. I have to get away. I must see what it says.

  Helena trusted Johannes as much as she trusted any of her family, but she wouldn’t simply hand over the package without knowing what it meant. Besides, Johannes was too eager to have it, too keen on controlling it.

  Statistically, his elevated emotional state could be linked to the threat to the company in which he is such a senior figure, said her AI.

  That’s not it, thought Helena, they’re my orders, not his, and his direction must be determined by politics or ambition. Those aren’t motives I can trust.

  The scent in the room had changed, which didn’t help; somewhere beyond the living room, Oliver was scared, too scared to come back in. Johannes seemed to notice the stink for the first time and, taking his eyes from Helena, he called out for Oliver to return.

  Oliver came into the room, his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes were wide open but his forehead was creased and his breath came shallowly.

  His heartbeat is like a crashing cymbal, thought Helena. She could also smell grease. What’s happening?

  “Is everything okay, Oliver?” enquired Johannes.

  “Yes, my lord,” said Oliver. Johannes frowned, ruffed his lips, and turned back to Helena, who couldn’t un
derstand why Oliver was lying and doing it so badly.

  “Helena?” Johannes asked, putting his hand out.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I need that package.” He did not seem to doubt she had it in her possession.

  “I don’t have it,” said Helena, letting her body language do the talking. Telling the literal truth made it much easier to be convincing; there was nothing to hide, no tell that spoke of words unsaid.

  Her uncle frowned. He put his hands on his knees and got up. “That’s a pity,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

  Something in his tone hardened. “Helena, my sweet, don’t disappoint me.”

  Helena was aware of his nearness, one stride away.

  “I don’t have it,” she repeated, her heartbeat gathering speed of its own, syncopating with Oliver’s. Helena could see sweat beading on his forehead.

  Why is that man so scared? she thought.

  Johannes came and sat down next to her on the sofa. She nearly fell into him as his weight caused the upholstery to sag.

  He took her hands in his. “Sweetheart, I know you have it, we intercepted a transmission directed to the Amazon Fell, why do you think Indexiv shot her down?” His tone conveyed an innocence that was betrayed by the content of his words.

  “I know where it is,” she said carefully, refusing to be bullied or coerced into surrendering a task given to her in confidence. Regardless of who in London had chosen her for this, Johannes’s presence meant her chance of successfully completing her objective was decreasing rapidly.

  “Good,” he said, beaming. “Excellent. There’s my girl.” He ruffled her hair with one of his hands. “Now then, where is it?” The room seemed lighter.

  “On the hopper,” she said.

  “Great.” He stood up.

  Helena saw movement behind him and for the first time really noticed Oliver. Seeing her eyes focus past him, Johannes turned to face his servant. Oliver was shaking, his face had gone white.

  In his hand was a small pistol.

  “What is the meaning of this?” asked Johannes incredulously, standing up.

  “I cannot let you have the package,” said Oliver haltingly, as if afraid of the words he was speaking.

  “What?” roared her uncle. Helena tensed her legs in preparation to spring backwards over the chair, towards the door onto the landing pad.

  “Do not move. People are on their way.” Oliver’s voice was weakening. Johannes looked from Oliver to Helena then back. He made a sudden grab for Oliver. As Johannes lunged, Helena launched herself over the back of the sofa.

  A single shot cracked through the room.

  Landing upright behind the sofa, Helena spun to take in the scene. Johannes was on his knees, blood sputtering from his mouth. She gasped. He looked up and began to stand; his eyes were focussed solely on her.

  “Helena. Go,” rasped Johannes as Oliver fired again. The bullet caught Johannes in the knee. He bellowed in pain. Oliver looked horrified by the weapon in his hand, as if it were acting of its own accord.

  Helena leapt towards the doorway, only to see the pilot racing towards her from the hopper.

  “Idiot!” she cried. “Start the hopper, we’ve got to leave!” He stopped running, but did not turn around to do as she said. “Do it now!” she barked at him. He fought with himself before turning on his heel. He was only two steps in front of her.

  Banging the door open to the passenger seat she jumped in, only looking back towards the penthouse as the pilot lifted the hopper from the pad. She saw Johannes come through the door, limping. He was carrying Oliver’s limp body in one hand. Johannes had stopped bleeding; his implants had already staunched the wounds and coagulated his blood. Her uncle waved her off before turning back to the flat, dragging Oliver’s body behind him.

  It takes more than a pistol to stop us, she thought. The pilot did his best not to notice, asking instead her where she wanted to go.

  “North,” was all she said as she reached under her seat for the package from Euros, what is this thing that so many people want to wrest it from my possession?

  The package was small, ten centimetres long and six centimetres wide. The wrapping was bulked out; whatever was squeezed inside strained at the seams of the envelope. Embedded on one of the flat sides was a small electronic panel onto which Helena placed her thumb, hoping it would open for her. It could easily explode if she tried to force it open.

  “Ma’am, how far north should we go?” asked the pilot. They were heading into the centre of downtown. He would soon require clearance and advisement of his route if he were to enter the business zone. She looked up. She did not know Brisbane.

  “How well do you know the city?” she asked him.

  “First time, ma’am,” came the reply. “Should I reach out for direction?”

  Tricky, she thought. “I’m in charge. Take us around downtown, carry on north beyond the city limits.” She thought for a minute. “Put us down somewhere near the coast. I want to be near the ocean.”

  “The city’s administrative AI is tracking us.” The pilot stated, his tone neutral.

  “Understood,” she replied, willing that they’d be gone before Johannes could mobilise them to bring her back in.

  The hopper turned its bubble-fuselage east towards the margins of downtown. Although it was not a thought she relished, she might have no other option than to leave the pilot behind. Helena hoped that he was simply a pilot working for her company who wouldn’t reason as to why she did what she did. After what had just happened she knew she had to distrust everything and everyone.

  Even those who might normally be invisible to me. She saw the Amazon Fell on fire in the sky.

  The city slipped past them as the pilot took the hopper in between the high-rise apartment blocks of the professional middle-classes who served the Oligarchy.

  Around them, shimmering towers of greens and blues rose into the sky, resting on bases of neurally-networked walls and foundation. The buildings knew who was flying between them, who lived within them, all the myriad details of their inhabitants’ lives. Thin curls of water vapour rose into the sky from their peaks, dispersing long before they blocked out the strength of the sun.

  Beyond the ring of professional residences was the urban and suburban sprawl, covering vast areas in low-rise packing houses, built from the cheapest biopolymers available. Nanomachines could put these up in hours or take them down just as rapidly. Helena guessed that more than ten million people lived in the suburban fat surrounding Brisbane’s lean heart, providing almost nothing for the commercial zone except consumption opportunities. The urban poor made what little they could by leasing out their bodies and their minds to the people living downtown; allowing corporations to run multiple AIs linked across regions, continents or worlds. The networks created by supercomputers composed entirely of enhanced humans provided all the processing power one might ever need. For this, they were paid little: enough to buy the nanomachines that grew their food, made their clothes and built their houses.

  There were fewer airborne vehicles out in the suburbs. What advertising there was rarely rose above three stories because most people were confined to the surface of the earth.

  The panel on the envelope recognised Helena’s genetic code with a splash of red light. She took her hand away and waited for it to open, but nothing happened. She picked it up, turning it upside down, this way and that, without success.

  Returning it right side up in her lap she noticed that text had appeared on the readout: Avoid members of Euros.

  Too late for that, said her AI.

  Helena ignored her AI’s unusually subjective commentary, focussing on the envelope. Dismissing its strange tone as a figment of her imagination. The hopper reached the northern edge of the city. The corporate sector fell further behind them, the traffic between its dwindling buildings no more than a grainy haze.

  “How big is the city?” she asked the pilot.

  After a fe
w seconds he said, “The latest pictures show urban architecture for another hundred kilometres north, ma’am.”

  Helena scanned the horizon, a dull urban patchwork of grey and green in all directions.

  They flew for half an hour before the buildings began to thin. The continuous pattern of houses, warehouses and streets began breaking down. The bush encroached, the sparse desert vegetation reasserting itself in place of the artificially maintained succulents that were the mainstay of the urban poor.

  The silence of the cockpit left her alone with thoughts of Schmerl and Ngasi. The contrast between the two men felt suffocating.

  You’ve never been this close to the consequences of your decisions before, said her AI.

  Helena knew then that something was wrong with her AI. It wasn’t structured to offer unsolicited comment on her thoughts. Primary AIs were engaged to act as the intelligent interface between their user and all other information channels she might have access to. She didn’t know if responding to it would make the situation worse.

  Was it the concussion? she wondered. She downloaded the first few articles that popped up when she searched for the impact of corrupted AIs on their owners. Worrying about it would have to wait until later.

  Using satellite maps of the coastline she directed the pilot on a course that diverged from the main ground routes, leading them slightly inland before they could approach the coast again. Eventually, seeing a small bay surrounded on two sides by low dunes reaching down to the shore, she ordered him to set down.

  As the hopper touched down, the package whined like an angry wasp. Helena picked it up, surprised. The black display panel acknowledged her thumbprint in harsh red letters. As the pilot powered down the superconducting magnets, the polymer envelope in her hands slowly disintegrated, leaving its contents untouched alongside the now-blank security panel. Helena had never used this type of parcel; they were more normally used to transfer commercially sensitive technologies. She was glad that she’d resisted the urge to tamper; it could have blown the hopper to pieces so small that nanomachines would have had difficulty finding them.