A Covenant of Thieves

by Christian Velguth

  That’s why we do it, Estelle reminded herself. To make the future brighter than it looks.

  Her jacket’s thermoregulating material helped keep her cool as she strode down the street. Despite the heat – or perhaps because of it – the neighborhood was already buzzing with activity. The streets rang with the honking cacophony of Parisian traffic – self-driving cars still hadn’t quite caught on in the city – which was only exacerbated by cyclists weaving between vehicles. Courbevoie was one of the most densely populated municipalities in Paris, though after nearly five years in the metropolis, Estelle didn’t think that was saying very much.

  “Heard from Booker lately?”

  The question was so out-of-the-blue that Estelle stumbled, nearly tripping as she hurried to cross the street. Honks followed her the entire way.

  “Sorry, dad, what?”

  “Booker. Just wondering if you’d heard from him.”

  She laughed, though it was more out of discomfort than anything. “Um. No, dad, I haven’t. We split up, like -- I don’t know. Six years ago?”

  He grunted.

  “What? Why are you asking?”

  “Nothing, forget it. Just thought maybe it’d be nice for you to get back in touch with him. He’s FBI now, you know.”

  “Yes, dad, I know.” She had, on occasion, browsed Booker’s social feed. Purely out of boredom. “You’re fishing for something.”

  “Not at all. Just putting it out there. Like I said, forget about it. I’d better get back to the grind. See you tonight, sweetheart.”

  “Ok. Bye…”

  She made the walk to the Gare de Courbevoie station in a bit of a daze, completely thrown by the randomness of her father’s inquiry. She and Booker had practically been kids when they knew each other, and she’d never even thought her dad was overly fond of him. Why was he asking now? He’d never pressured her to settle down or anything like that.

  Estelle shook her head as she caught the 5:50 train west into La Défense, Paris’ sprawling business district. Just one more thing to bring up over dinner.

  It was a short ride, but one she always enjoyed. From her seat she could watch as the only skyscrapers in Paris grew taller on the horizon, made all the more dramatic by the height restrictions imposed on the surrounding arrondissements. Though it was a sign of the country’s progress and healthy economy, many native Parisians still saw the district as an eye-sore, almost as a matter of tradition at this point.

  Ten minutes later, at the heart of La Défense, Estelle exited the subterranean station and was treated to her favorite view in all of Paris. The station was located beneath La Grande Arche, a massive, hollow, marble-and-glass-sided hypercube constructed in the late 20th century as a modern version of Napoleon’s iconic Arc de Triomphe. It played double-duty as a government office building as well as a monument, and was aligned along the Axe Historique, a five-mile-long boulevard that began at Le Louvre, ran straight through the city, and terminated at La Grande Arche, hitting multiple Parisian monuments along the way.

  Standing now at the foot of La Grande Arche and looking east across the concrete stretch of the surrounding promenade, Estelle could see almost directly through the heart of Paris along the Axe Historique. Far off, rendered hazy by the miles and the heat, stood the Arc de Triomphe, almost a mirror-image of its modern cousin. To Estelle, the view was like looking directly into the past. It seemed to perfectly encapsulate how Paris was embracing the future while holding onto its proud history.

  So it made sense, and was surely no accident, that adjacent to La Grande Arche, and sharing nearly the same view, stood the headquarters of Radical Dynamics-France.

  The Radical Dynamics campus was a cluster of four towers, three rectangular ones arranged in a triangle around a central cylindrical spire. It was similar to the company’s international headquarters in Detroit, both in layout and in the fact that it had been conceived of as a city within a city. In addition to office space, the towers contained apartments, restaurants, and hotels, and was designed to immediately impress upon every newcomer just what Radical Dynamics was all about.

  Which was, in a word, everything.

  The integrated smart system greeted Estelle with a friendly graphic on her glasses as she entered the Southeast Tower and found herself standing in a vast central atrium. There was a water feature in the middle of the floor, broad water lilies and green algae floated on its surface, with clusters of reeds and feather-headed papyrus crowding the soil along its “shore.” The pond was fed by several artificial streams and brooks that trickled beneath glass panels and the occasional arching bamboo walkway, and were in turn fed by a waterfall that emerged from a grotto set into one wall.

  In addition to providing housing for nearly a thousand Parisian employees, the Southeast Tower – more commonly known as “Tour d’Eden” – was a fully-functioning model of the arcologies Radical Dynamics was developing in places like the American Southwest Crisis Zone and Africa, where climate shift had already begun to turn previously-habitable environments hostile. The entirety of the forty-story tower was self-contained, employing a variety of innovative techniques, both ecological and technological, to recycle and reuse as much clean water and breathable air as possible. Though Paris itself had been a green city well before Radical Dynamics moved in, Tour d’Eden operated on a separate microgrid, utilizing photovoltaic exterior skin, a rooftop wind farm, and clean-burning syngas manufactured from the waste product of residents.

  Estelle often had lunch at one of the tables beside the central pond, but she just couldn’t bring herself to live and work in the same complex. As much as she loved her job, even she needed at least a semblance of an outside life.

  Her office was in the adjacent Southwest Tower on the thirty-third floor. Normally Estelle would walk there, taking either the open-air walkways that ringed the mezzanine of the central cylindrical tower or one of the enclosed skybridges; slightly behind schedule, today she opted for one of the electric carts that motored through the network of subterranean tunnels instead, crossing the complex in only three minutes.

  It was seven past six when Estelle exited the elevator on the thirty-third floor of the Southwest Tower. The open-concept office space was predictably empty. Most of her team didn’t start showing up until eight at the earliest, which gave her plenty of time to get a jump on the day, despite her slight tardiness. At her desk she synced her glasses with her terminal, then pulled up the Chen portfolio and reviewed the pertinent data points in the mission file that the client had provided.

  Chen Natural Solutions, a Hong Kong-based biotech subsidiary of Radical Dynamics. They wanted to know what the future held for fungal textiles: investment risk vs. reward, expected breakthroughs in the next five years, high-potential demographics, market saturation, and if the world was ready to start wearing mushrooms. For that, they, like so many others, relied upon the Futurology Lab. Estelle, as one data analyst among many, was responsible for reading the tea leaves of market trends, fashion cycles, mycological research, and fungal sustainability, and synthesizing an advisory report to guide Chen Natural Solutions in their decision-making.

  After perusing their short-term goals, she drafted her preliminary thoughts on the topic. She wouldn’t wear a mushroom, but a bioluminescent dress at the latest Razor’s Edge fashion show had made a splash, so apparently she was behind the times. Plus, there were other ways the concept could be exploited. Cheap, renewable clothing for poverty-stricken populations; edible survival gear; naturally antimicrobial fabrics. She added these to the list of possible directions for the R&D department, working in a sort of creative free-flow. The feasibility of it all could be investigated once her team finished their current project and began the Chen portfolio in earnest.

  That done, Estelle went to the conference room and prepped it for presentations. At 06:45 she placed an order with the boulangerie located in the atrium; at 07:15, the elevator doors opened and Isa stepped out, balancing a blue pastry box in one hand.
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br />   “Those were supposed to be a surprise,” Estelle called across the office.

  Isa shrugged. “I intercepted the delivery boy in the elevator.”

  “They were also supposed to be for everybody.”

  Isa set the box on the oval conference table and finished a powdered beignet. “Consider it my delivery fee, then.”

  Estelle stuck out her tongue, then snagged another croissant for herself. Isa lived in Tour d’Eden, and so was often the first to arrive after Estelle. Isa was also her boss, head of the Futurology Lab for RD-France, a fact that did nothing to compel Isa to arrive at the office before Estelle. The rest of their colleagues showed up soon after, exiting the elevator in groups of three and four. By 08:30 they were all settling around the conference table in ergonomic chairs and reducing the contents of the pastry box to little more than crumbs and powdered sugar.

  Estelle took her customary seat at the opposite end of the table from Isa, connecting her glasses to the local group so they could all share files. She waited for the chatter to die down and, after another few minutes, Isa finally got the ball rolling. “Bonjour, everyone. Hope your morning’s been good so far.”

  A loud yawn came from Estelle’s right. Gerard scratched his chin, the stubble rasping beneath his nails. He was slouched in his chair, arms folded and eyes closed. “Let’s take it slow today, boss, eh? It’s already in the high twenties out there.”

  “And we’re in here,” Isa reminded him with a smile. “Gerard, go get more coffee. Everyone else, let’s get started. Estelle, I assume you and your team would like to go first?”

  Estelle shared her data packet with the rest of the room, sending it to their devices. “Phase 1 report on current fusion viability is ready. We’ve compiled thirty years’ worth of research from ENS, MIT, Berkley, and Tsinghua, which I’ll let you peruse at your pleasure.”

  Isa slid a hand over the tabletop, activating its touch capabilities and bringing up the team’s files on the built-in display. For a Phase 1 packet, Estelle knew it was extensive. Maybe even excessive. Tables charting the progress of research over the years, cost-benefit analysis, references – decades of fusion research condensed, summarized, and translated for the higher-ups in the Experimental Energy Division. But if she was going to do a thing, she was going to do it right.

  “What’re the highlights?”

  “To put it simply,” Estelle said, “progress has stalled since the first quarter of the 21st century. Magnetic confinement is still the only route seeing any real gains past unity, but they’re small, and improvements have been minimal at best.”

  “To say nothing of the hurdles they’re still facing,” Tonique added. “Instability is still a big problem. Enough to keep fusion in development and out of practice for at least the remainder of the century.”

  Isa frowned down at the files. “So what you’re saying is magnetic confinement is the best route to fusion, but it’s still far from a sure thing.”

  Estelle shrugged. “That’s what the data says. The company would be looking at a forty-year commitment, minimum, and would likely be operating at a loss the whole way through, even with subsidies. That’s time and resources better spent bolstering the green energy sectors that we already know work.”

  “You’re talking complete abandonment?” Isa wasn’t the only one at the table who looked surprised. “This is just a Phase 1, Estelle. We don’t usually make those calls until Phase 3, at least.”

  “Based on what we’re seeing…there doesn’t seem to be any sense in moving forward, no. Solar and wind are the safest bet, and there’s still plenty of progress to be made with fission.”

  "RD doesn't want to be seen working with fission. Chernobyl was almost a hundred years ago, but the public still doesn't trust it."

  Eric threw up a hand at the far end of the table. “Hold on. Solar and wind are fine, but they can’t power an entire civilization that’s still on the upswing in growth. We can’t just abandon fusion. Short of a Dyson swarm it’s the only real energy solution.”

  “It’s a nice dream,” Estelle said kindly. “But it looks like that’s all it ever will be. In our lifetimes, at least.”

  “Bullshit.” The room stared at him. “I’m sorry, but it is. Stellar Frontiers is using miniature fusion reactors right now to power commercial probes. Reactors we developed. We can scale up –”

  “All attempts at scaling have failed. Return on energy input drops significantly, and nobody’s been able to get around that. Even if we put all of EED’s resources into solving the problem, that’s a huge commitment with no guarantee of any return. This is my project, Eric, I’ve run all the numbers. I’m telling you, it’s just not safe for the company –”

  “Screw corporate safety! Are we trying to change the world or fill investor pockets?”

  “Alright, enough.” Isa didn’t shout, but the room fell silent at once. Eric sank back into his seat, pointedly not looking at Estelle. “Thank, you Eric. I’m sure Estelle and her team welcome your input. Anybody else?” Isa looked around the table. Nobody offered their voice. Isa nodded. “Provided the rest of Estelle’s team feels the same way, then this is the conclusion we’ll be moving forward with.”

  Tonique and Emilie both nodded, giving Estelle looks of support. She smiled and tried to ignore the roiling in her stomach. Morning meetings were a place to open up each team’s projects to discussion, a way to get fresh perspective and collaborate towards new insight. There were bound to be a few skirmishes, but she always hated them. We’re trying to change the world. Did Eric think she wasn’t aware of that? It was why she’d taken the position with Radical Dynamics; why she’d been with the Futurology Lab since literally the day after graduation. They were the only ones who could make a difference. That was why they couldn’t afford to go chasing after pipe dreams. They had to follow the data, no matter where it went.

  “Alright then. Estelle, Emilie, Tonique, move on to Phase 2. Get started on some exploratory framework for what the company’s next steps could be. I’ll pass this up the chain.” Isa paused, then spoke in a softer voice. “I know we all care about what we’re doing here. Eric, I love your enthusiasm. But RD is a business, and we can’t forget that. If it were possible to run this company as a non-profit, I know we’d all be onboard.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Gerard coughed, drawing enough laughter to break some of the tension in the room.

  “But,” Isa continued, “we’re not. Which means that even if Nasim al-Faradi herself is pulling for fusion, the shareholders might not be. And if they’re not on board, research and development doesn’t get the resources they need to pursue anything. We’re all here to give the world a fighting chance, but chasing after magic bullets isn’t going to accomplish that.”

  There was a pause, long enough for the message to settle in with everyone around the table. Satisfied, Isa nodded and motioned for the next team to present, and Prichard stood with a dramatic wave of his arm. The lights in the conference room dimmed and the glass walls went opaque.

  His white biofilter mask was a common sight among Parisian commuters, but it muffled his words so much that Estelle had to activate the speech-to-text app on her glasses. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have one word for you: zombies.”

  On the opaque windows a graphic was displayed, of rotting, ravenous hordes marching across a blasted city-scape. “They’re back, people. Just when you thought it was safe to go outside. Our research is showing that the zombie genre is in vogue, which means Radical Entertainment needs to get a slice of the brains, ASAP…”

  By the time the morning meeting was wrapping up, they had all sat through six dense presentations of varying promise. Isa dismissed them all with the look of a mind thoroughly wrung out. For her own part, Estelle went to her desk enervated, ready to throw herself into Phase 2 of the fusion portfolio.

  In truth, she couldn’t imagine any other place she would want to work. She had been with the company right out of college, interning as an analyst at
the Detroit headquarters. Her talent for seeing the pictures behind the data had been quickly noticed, and after only six months she had become a full-time member of the Futurology Lab. From there her progress only seemed to accelerate – she moved up the ranks and quickly became the top analyst in the Third Coast. Her years there had been like a dream – Detroit was both the nerve center of the largest corporation in the world and the center of innovation in America. It was where Radical Dynamics had been born. The most important decisions were made there, and she was one of the people making them.

  Given the choice, Estelle might never have left Detroit. It was close enough to home that she’d never felt homesick, and she had worked in the same building as Nasim al-Faradi’s (often vacant) office. But when the position opened up in Paris, Estelle had known immediately that she had to take it. Her parents had moved to Paris once she was in college, fulfilling a decades-old dream for the both of them. It was in Paris that her mother had contracted a fatal glioma, leaving Martin Kingston alone with his own health issues -- rheumatoid arthritis complicated by super-resistant MRSA. Despite her father’s constant reassurance, Estelle couldn’t help but worry, always hated to think of him alone. And so she had made the move.

  She slumped behind her desk and stared out the window at the other skyscrapers of La Défense, burning bright with reflected sunlight. There was work to be done. Phase 2 was always more rigorous than Phase 1, and as her team’s lead analyst, they needed her direction. Estelle knew she should be dictating assignments, that she was already behind.

  But the bug was in her brain now. The tone of her father’s voice during their morning conversation…something was different. He’d seemed distracted, asking about Booker out of the blue. Something had changed. Did it have anything to do with his most recent research trip? Somehow she thought not; her father had been a writer for most of his life, and not always a successful one. He was familiar with stalls and fumbles, and was a staunch atheist when it came to writer’s block. Whatever had been bothering him had felt like more than a hitch in his latest project.