Chapter 6: Optimism of the Will
From /Signified ---- Book Two of 2084 Quartet
PLEASE NOTE: The following material is intended for mature readers only.
A Note on Language
It is inevitable, in a work of speculative fiction, that futuristic technologies, technical terms, and even everyday slang appear in the course of the narrative. For the convenience of the reader, the first time each of these neologisms appears in the story, it will be marked in boldface and hyperlinked to the Glossary of Terms and Slang, where you will be able to find a definition. Additionally, on occasion a non-English language will be used in the dialogue among characters. While no direct translations have been provided, never fear. The reader will be able, quite readily, to discern the meaning of these utterances within the context of the story.
Quick Plot Recap
In Chapter 5, Bleached Wheat finally launches a military counteroffensive against the Wobbly uprising in and around BoiCity. Of even greater concern to him, though, is stopping the spread of the attitude-altering “Best of All Possible Worlds” advert designed by Mall and Brand. This potent “taste” turns Terds against Crats, threatening the fundamental power structure of TexArc. Unleashed on the Wobblies are the elite and murderous forces of ArcNet. The Wobbly forces, despite heroic efforts within the deadly “postmod battlespace,” prove to be no match for the technologically superior “Netsmen.” ArcNet overruns both Mountain Home ArcAir Base and BoiCity itself. During the carnage, Mall discovers that Sinalco is not human; Bleached Wheat discovers that whoever is slicing that rouge taste to the Terds is very, very good at penetrating the TexArc internet. Understanding that dire circumstances demand extreme tactics, Bleached Wheat gets in touch with Oak to negotiate a deal.
Chapter 6
Optimism of the Will
Their first night is spent in the Shoshone Ice Caves. A rusty sign still stands announcing Guided Tours of the roadside tourist trap. There’s a derelict log cabin, painted bright red, that maybe was the gift shop. They stay in the caves themselves. These are more or less holes in the desert floor that sink down into catacombs and waterways extending surprisingly far and shockingly cold. For much of the night, Mall lingers half-hidden at the entrance, staring up into the too-brilliant Milky Way. Sinalco assures her that there is no pursuit on foot at this point. ArcNet hunts them by surveillance from above. Mall doesn’t ask how Sinalco possibly can know such things. That first night, Mall refuses to speak to Sinalco at all.
Their next two days and nights are spent wandering a singular landscape, further to the east, that Sinalco identifies as the Craters of the Moon. It’s a vast eruption field from who knows how long ago. Wide volcanic basins, smaller splatter cones, deep sink holes, sweeping lava flows of a deep and iridescent blue-black.
“Titanium magnetite crystals suspended in glassy rock,” Sinalco attempts small talk.
Mall replies matter-of-factly. “It mucks up their bloody sensors, right?”
“Well...yes,” Sinalco must admit. “It is good for that.”
“I bloody thought so.”
But at least Mall is speaking.
They dare light no fire. No lizard or rattlesnake or jackrabbit can be roasted, as Enron had shown Mall how to do. For food, Sinalco digs up a few fibrous, dirt-tasting bulbs for Mall to masticate. Sego Lilies. It’s like gnawing on a waterlogged chestnut. Dirty ice from the hardened lava tubes they walk provides Mall with water. Sinalco needs nothing to eat or drink. Mall offers no comment.
On the morning of the fourth day, once more Mall suffers being carried like a baby across the sage flats, again travelling eastward. After a short time, a dumpling-shaped mountain rises on the horizon.
“Big Southern Butte,” Sinalco names it.
The formation is twenty-three hundred meters high. As they get nearer it, two sister buttes appear to the northeast. One is a round-backed lump, the other more interestingly peaked at one end. These three buttes are silica-rich volcanic lava domes formed over a million years.
“What we got going on here?” Mall asks as they begin to ascend a long box canyon at the northwestern foot of the Big Butte.
“A rendezvous. If we are in luck.”
“We haven’t been in a bleeding spot of luck since you knocked on my door in Oxford.”
“Very true.”
They spend that night high up in a dusty bowl on the butte. People have obviously spent nights here before. For years and years, from the looks of the body depressions worn into the ground as sleeping places. Bootleggers most likely. Outlaws of various sorts. If possible, the night sky is even brighter, even more colossal at this altitude. Sinalco and Mall sit watching it.
“They coming?” Mall whispers to her.
“Could be now,” Sinalco whispers back.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a shit to you.”
“I understand why, my pet.”
Mall takes Sinalco’s hand. They sit side-by-side for hours, listening hard for boot steps. When Mall wakes, she’s curled on her side. It’s just past dawn. She stretches and stands and is horribly stiff and cold. Sinalco is nowhere to be seen. Without warning a squad of NetExos sails over the western ridge. All ten of them land in the bowl at precisely the same instant. In the next instant, Sinalco appears. Just materializes out of nothing. Then she dematerializes again, but into some kind of whorl. Then there are screams. And horrible sounds of muffled suffocating. Then a funereal silence. Then Sinalco is gathering Mall into her arms. They all but fly over the eastern ridge. They scurry up that steep combe. When they’re a good distance away Mall is set down in the thick cover of cedars and pines.
“They will send more soon,” Sinalco whispers.
Mall is without breath. “How did they know?”
“They did not. They guess at where we might be. These ones are just the scouts.” Sinalco pauses. She seems to be solving a math problem in her head. “I block their communication. But soon ArcNet will know these scouts are dead. They will send more here. All this day we must move and hide.”
“Shouldn’t we get off this mountain?”
“No. We can not.”
All day they shift position, hide, shift position, hide again, always wary, always climbing higher, never speaking a word. At sundown they find a good ravine, near to the summit, where the shadows are lengthening. They settle in.
“Here is good,” Sinalco declares.
Once more they sit side-by-side, hidden but with an excellent overview of the plains stretching out far below them to the west. After several minutes Sinalco pulls out a canteen and a small bundle of deer jerky, wrapped in a kerchief. She hands both to Mall.
“Bloody hell,” Mall whispers in wonder and appreciation. “This my last meal then?”
“Just eat.”
Mall unwraps the jerky and with her molars tears a wodge off the top of one strip. As her saliva starts to penetrate the hard, dry meat, its taste emerges.
“Oh bloody fucking hell,” Mall sighs, “that’s bloody fucking paradise.”
They sit silently, Mall chewing slowly, until the shadows lengthen deep enough to disappear finally into dusk. Stars brighten as the world darkens. Sinalco scans quadrants of the sky. Mall, thinking the time appropriate, washes down a mouthful of jerky with the cool, clean water from the canteen then asks.
“So, what exactly are you?”
A man’s voice replies from behind them.
“Sinalco is digital matter.”
Mall spins around. Sinalco does not move. The man clears his throat before speaking again.
“A fractal shape-shifting bot, to put it a different way, my dear.”
From behind a gloomy bank of cedars steps Underminister Harrods. There’s enough twilight yet in the ravine for Mall to make him out distinctly.
“I know we are late,” Sinalco speaks toward the plains, scanning the sky.
“Only by a bit,” replies Harrods, kindly. “Are they onto you?”
“I think so, yes. We will not have much time, I think.”
“We best get right to it, then.”
“Yes,” agrees Sinalco, “we best.”
Mall is on her feet, walking aggressively toward Harrods, her voice low and indignant.
“You sodding lunatic. Just what the hell are you playing at? At a stroke, you’re back from the dead and responsible for fielding a...a nanobot?” Mall turns back around as if she’s suddenly remembered her manners. “You’re a nanobot, Sinalco?”
“Oui, chérie. Désolé. Sorry. But I am multipurpose programmable.”
“Oh, come, come,” says Harrods. “No need to be so modest. You’re far more than that.”
Silence follows his statement. During it, Mall looks back and forth between them, confused, increasingly irate. “How do you mean?” she asks finally of Harrods. “How do you mean?” Mall demands again, more curtly.
“Molecular self-assembly,” he explains.
Mall involuntarily gasps. “You daft old bastard,” she mutters to herself. Then speaking up, “You’ve released assemblers?”
“Yes,” replies the Underminister. “Yes, I have, Mall.” He’s unabashed, on the verge of defiant. “That is precisely what I have done. I have released assemblers. What of it?”
“What of it?” Mall repeats in astonishment. “The end of the sodding world, that’s what of it.”
“Stop your paranoia. There’s no proof that GGE is an actual phenomenon—”
“Gray Goo Effect,” Mall swells her voice dangerously, “is not something that you want to experiment at!”
They both freeze. They look to Sinalco. Sitting with her back to them, she has one hand raised, signaling for their quiet. After a lengthy wait, she says softly, “We are okay still. But no more shoutings, if you please.” Then, before debate takes up again, she adds, “I am not artificial, Mall.”
“What?”
“Je ne suis pas artificiel.”
Mall takes a knee in the dust. “What?”
“It’s true,” says Harrods. “Sinalco is not ersatz. She is human intelligence.”
Mall is dizzy, woozy. She puts a stabilizing hand on the ground. “Wait...what...you’re telling me...but how is that...?”
Her questions hang in the eventide.
“I die two years ago. My body does.” Sinalco’s voice is blunt, guileless. “Acute leukemia. I was then top teek in Countermeasures. I am even more that now. Not so different really.”
In disbelief, in respect, Mall asks, “You’re a conplant?”
Sinalco swivels her head to meet Mall’s eyes. “Oui, c’est ça,” she confirms evenly. “Exactement.” She turns back to monitoring the endless night sky.
Mall applies her free hand to her forehead. Then she covers her mouth.
“The technology is not complex, you know,” offers Harrods. “We’ve had the ability to implant since the mid-30s or so. Such a download is relatively straightforward.”
“But it’s forbidden,” Mall says feebly, looking up at Harrods.
“Indeed,” nods Harrods, “very few know.”
Mall notices now how the Underminister isn’t wearing a wrinkled muslin suit. How his shock of older man’s hair is cropped to stubble. How he wears the umber flight-suit of a subterrene pilot.
“Does Natwest know?” Mall asks.
“Yes. As do you now, as well.”
“Does Movënpick know?” Mall asks more pointedly.
Harrods stiffens. “Administer Movënpick most certainly does not know.” He speaks adamantly. “I’ve been at tremendous pains to prevent her from knowing about any of this. I can assure you, no one on Caucus has the slightest idea about what’s taking place here. The communicants would never approve such an undertaking.”
“That’s because it is immoral.” Mall manages to stand. “Because it is unspeakably dangerous.” She scowls at Harrods. She returns to sit down by Sinalco. “And how are you feeling about all of this?” she asks her teek.
Sinalco’s smile is slight. She does not take her eyes off the sky. “At first much fun,” she remarks. “There are no consequences. You know?” She inspects a fleck in the void for a moment, then dismisses it as any kind of threat. “Now, not so much fun anymore, my love. There are no consequences. You know?”
Mall leans into an awkward sidelong hug. After a moment, Sinalco hugs Mall back. Sinalco always smells of strawberries to Mall. Mall wonders if Sinalco does that just for her—because she knows Mall loves real strawberries, but can rarely afford to buy them back home. Mall stands and comes back to Harrods. Face-to-face, she’s just able to make out the Underminister’s melancholic features in the deep shadows. She speaks in a composed, nearly fatalist tone.
“Superhuman fractal capabilities. Assembler self-replication. Let’s not leave out virtual immortality, shall we?” Mall bends an eyebrow. “I take it, then, Underminister, that Sinalco’s mission in TexArc has been somewhat more grand than facilitating my speck of cultural warfare.”
“Indeed it has, Mall. Indeed, it has.” She can smell his stale sweat. How he’s been a long time in subterrene cramped quarters. “Don’t sell your efforts short, though, my dear. What you’ve accomplished has been nothing shy of amazing. Far more than anyone could have expected of you. But it has been a sideshow, yes. A most useful diversion.”
“This has all been spy-world intrigue, then, has it, sir?”
“Mall, for at least the past century, all the really telling matters have been well-nigh nothing but spy-world intrigue. That’s how the Know War is waged.”
Of all their obscuring phrases, of all their heinous geopolitical euphemisms, this one Mall detests the most. “In the dark,” she says bitingly. “So no one can see.”
“Yes, yes. I apologize for the endless huggermugger. But you’ve no idea how labyrinthine we’ve had to be even to get us this far.”
“This far...at what, sir?” Mall asks acerbically. Her eyes seek out Harrods’ in the murk. “Am I allowed to know?”
Sinalco interjects, “Best to hurry more now. Just a little.”
Underminister Harrods clears his throat.
“Yes, Mall. You really must know. That much I owe you. You see,” he clears his throat again, “I am fighting fire with fire, Mall. At first I assumed that TexArc simply was intent on destroying EVe. Our alterity, after all, always has been a threat to them. Decades ago, just prior to their rise, we were trying to spread KME globally. But KME undermines all monopolies. Implemented, it would put an end to anyone’s having a worldwide economic stranglehold, meaning that greed would have gone for naught. The concept of profit would have fallen by the cultural wayside. Well, their neoliberal sensibilities could have no truck with that. So TexArc came into being and promptly took over the planet. Hemmed us in, as I explained to you back in Oxford. Naturally, I believed their most recent aggressions toward us meant that they were finally ready to finish the job. That the time had come round, at last, to make permanent their planetary hegemony via our complete eradication. But you have shown me otherwise, Mall.”
“Me? How? What do you mean?”
“You’ve argued from the start that TexArc wasn’t after our annihilation, but our absorption, for the new markets EVe represents to their corporate feudalism. I didn’t believe your theory at first, but I’ve been monitoring closely, through Sinalco, your time and experiences here in TexArc, Mall.” He clears his throat. “And I see now that you are entirely right. TexArc wants us—indeed, requires us—for the survival of their system of commercial slavery. With EVe under their belt, TexArc can persist easily for another century or so. And that eventuality, Mall, is something I will not risk. That is an outcome, Mall, that, unequivocally, I will not tolerate. I could have lived or died with the consequences of a struggle to the death, Mall. I really could have. But our enslavement? No. Never.”
A touch of alarm enters Mall’s voice. “What are you planning to do?”
“Fire with fire, Mall. A page from their book. Originally, I placed you in TexArc under elaborate pretenses solely for the sake of reconnaissance. Know your enemy to be better able to fight him. Well, the more, through you, I came to know about TexArc, the more I became convinced that combat alone would never do. Instead, I must meet their malevolence with malevolence of my own.”
“How do you mean?”
“A pre-emptive strike, Mall. In the Know War. I am right on the verge of launching one.”
Mall sees that Harrods is completely serious. “On who’s authority?” she challenges. “By what right?”
“No one’s and none, Mall. Whatever.”
“Then you will be as bad as they are.”
“No, Mall. Decidedly, I will not be. The means are similar. The ends are so very, very different. I employ GNR to advance paxrevolution. They use it to maintain and tighten their grasp on monopoly.”
“Why, then, the cowardly skullduggery of feigning your own death?”
“To operate unencumbered at home. To deceive my opposite in TexArc.”
“Your opposite?”
“Never mind. We haven’t time. Listen to me, Mall. It’s as plain as this. I will not be yet another humane, alteritist sheep to the slaughter. I will not, Mall. History is chock-full of dead idealists who were too good for this world. Idealists who, out of nice principle, refused to meet fire with fire. Well, as you yourself might say,” here he clears his throat, “sod that. I am one old socialist who is going to kick them squarely in the googlies. I know that Caucus never could and never would authorize the action I am about to take. So I will simply take it. I act not out of ego, not out of zealotry, not out of delusions of divine authority or any other tomfoolery that might apply here. No, Mall, I act out of opportunity. Nothing more, nothing loftier than that. I act because I find myself in a position to act. I act because this is something that must be done.”
After the smallest pause. “And what exactly are you about to do, Underminister?”
Harrods looks past Mall. He asks Sinalco, “Now?”
“Yes,” Sinalco verifies. “Now or not at all.”
The Underminister looks back to Mall, moves closer to study her face. “I am so very sorry, my dear. But I’ve had Sinalco fashion, during her time here, a nanovirus. One very specific to its task.”
“A nanovirus?”
“Quite. A massively destructive nanotech devise fused with molecular biology and advanced infotech.”
After processing these words, “In short, then, sir, KMD. You are preparing to detonate, knowingly, KMD in the world.”
“Yes.”
Mall didn’t expect his frank acknowledgement. “And, so, tell me then, what will this nasty mech bug of yours do to us?”
“Oh, you needn’t worry, Mall. It’s designed to be exceedingly selective. Upon its release, it will affect only a certain geographical area, and then only a certain group of people living within that area. People, moreover, who are genetically distinct.”
“You’re joking. There’s no such tech to do such awful things.” Mall suddenly glances over her shoulder at Sinalco. “Is there?”
Harrods sees her train of thought. “This is absolutely cutting-edge, Mall. Only Sinalco could have assembled it.”
“Soon,” Sinalco speaks out, as though responding to cue.
“So we are talking about replicating assemblers,” Mall clarifies. “And if assemblers get out of hand...gray goo.”
“We’ve adequately accounted for any harmful amplifying factors,” Harrods explains, impatiently patient. “These assemblers shouldn’t get out of hand.”
“Adequately, sir? Shouldn’t, Underminister?”
Harrods understands how she’s right. Of course, Mall is right. But he cannot care.
“Mall, listen carefully now. We’ve little time remaining. And there is one thing yet that I must inform you—”
“Just who the bloody hell is your smart virus designed to kill, anyway, sir?” Mall’s ire surfaces. “Who have you decided will be the sacrificial lambs of our paxrevolution?”
The Underminister clears his throat. “Caucasian males of Lower North America.”
This takes a moment to sink in.
“He names it ‘affluenza,’” Sinalco helps Mall to understand. “I am afraid, my pet, it makes the perfect sense.”
“But you can’t,” Mall pleads. “We’ve turned so many with our taste. We’ve seen so many good men among the Servs and the Terds. Honest men. Honorable men. Poised for liberation.”
“I am well aware, Mall,” says Harrods. “And I am sorry. I understand your passion for your work. That’s why you excel at it. But those turnings are likely drops in the bucket. And, more to the point, we simply haven’t time. The TexArcan plutocracy will strike EVe long before any grassroots uprising can take hold. Even more likely is any uprising in TexArc is doomed to be crushed. Just look at your own efforts in BoiCity.”
Of course, Harrods is right. Mall knows that.
But gray goo. Gray goo.
“Voilà,” says Sinalco. “They come. Two, maybe three minutes.”
“Mall,” Harrods begins urgently, “listen now—”
“Don’t do this, sir! I beg you! Do not release this virus! Even EVe is not worth the end of the world!”
“Mall! Really now! You must hear what I have to say!”
“Sir! Leaving Sinalco behind to set off this bug is not the answer! There has to be another way!”
Even with precious few moments to spare, Harrods hesitates now. He wonders if Sinalco will comment. He gives her an ample window of silence to fill. When she does not, he waits yet several long moments more. Just to be certain. Just to be scrupulous about things. Then he clears his throat. Then he asks Mall, “How’s that again, my dear?”
“Do not leave Sinalco behind,” Mall says adamantly. “It’s not worth it. Nothing is worth that risk.”
Harrods says nothing. He looks to Sinalco. Sinalco knows she’s being looked at by him. She refuses to look back. She says nothing still.
“See here,” Mall presses the Underminister, “I assume you came in a two-per. Yeah? Am I correct?”
“Yes,” confirms Harrods. “The small ones are virtually impossible to detect.”
“And I assume you are piloting it yourself, sir?”
“Indeed. Yes. What are you driving at, Mall?”
“Then take Sinalco back with you. Leave me behind. With what she’s seen of TexArc, with what she knows of their ArcNet system, with her extraordinary capabilities...well, she’s far too great an asset to EVe than to strand here. She’ll just be destroyed in what likely will become a suicide mission for us all.”
Harrods permits more silence before asking at last, “Do you know what you are saying, Mall?”
“Yes. Carry on the fight, sir. Do not set loose this nanovirus.”
“They are about to arrive, Mall. In numbers. You will be captured. You will be tortured. A large portion of that torture is bound to be unspeakably brutal. Then they will kill you in an awful way. Make no mistake about any of that, my dear.”
Mall does not hesitate with her answer. “I know I will regret this decision horribly the instant you two have gone, Underminister Harrods. So please do go now. Please.”
Sinalco stands. As she passes by, she reaches out a hand to find Mall’s hand. There is a tight squeeze. Then from the signer’s hand, the teek’s hand soft withdraws.
“Oh, sir. Here you go.” Mall presses her bundle of deer jerky into Harrods’ hands. “Some genuine protein for you, sir,” she explains. “For the journey.”
Harrods and Sinalco disappear behind the bank of cedars. Not a minute later, fifty NetExos, forming two concentric rings surrounding Mall, concurrently land with a great thud. Two of them approach her. One breaks Mall’s jaw with the butt of his mister. At the same time, the other, with the butt of his mister, splinters Mall’s right kneecap.
**********
“We are both the shits, you know.”
“I am well aware, Sinalco. There is no need to remind me.”
Sinalco pilots the two-person subterrene. When backtunneling their own glass hole, these small, sleek ships reach incredible velocity. Once the exit cleft is sealed, a nearly perfect vacuum forms. Harrods and Sinalco are sucked back northeastward toward Nixon Bay. Harrods is an expert pilot, from his former subterriner days, but knows that Sinalco’s heightened reflexes can speed them a third again faster. That speed is crucial to escaping TexArcan detection. In the tiny two-per, they lie belly-to-belly, like two cartridges in a chamber. So positioned, and to run silent, they temper their speaking voices.
“The virus is quite inside her then?”
“Oui.”
“How did you manage it?”
“Avec le café. With the coffee. In Fribourg I prepare the nano substructure. In BoiCity, after your memo comes, I make final configuration. That takes more time.”
“Again, with the coffee?”
“Oui. Yes. Always the same way.”
“And she has no idea?”
“Non. Not at all.”
They speed in the purring silence for a time before the Underminister starts again.
“And it will be released upon her death?”
“Yes.” Anger enters her voice. “As you tell me to make it, I make it. When our Mall dies, this virus gets out.”
“I am very sorry, Sinalco. Her genetic heritage makes her the perfect carrier. Her sex prevents her from contracting the virus itself. Her being an abstainant safeguards against an untimely passing on of the virus.” The Underminister falters, then clears his throat. “She did remain abstainant all this while, correct? You saw to that, too?”
“Yes, yes. I snog all, as Mall say, so that she snog no one.”
Harrods waits some moments. “I am sorry you had to do that.”
“It means nothing. Ne signifie rien.”
“Nonetheless, my apologies.”
Three or four minutes pass in the slightly vibrating hush.
“I have fear that our Mall will be abstainant no longer.”
“No,” agrees Harrods, downcast, “I am afraid not.”
Three or four more minutes speed by. Finally, Sinalco asks.
“And you are very sure he is him? That all this we must do?”
“Yes, Sinalco. I am more than certain. All of the information you passed along, all of the vidaud feeds you were able to supply me with, convince me beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is the same man I met over twenty years ago. I am quite sure of it.”
In the spring of 2060, Harrods, then a junior envoy from Countermeasures, had been part of the last negotiations ever held between TexArc and EVe. Their diplomatic contingent travelled by submarine to what was then TexArc’s capital meg, along its eastern seaboard. Harrods still remembers the overwhelming smell of cherry blossoms in the air. EVe communicants worked through a co-existence understanding with what seemed a more progressive and realistic Crat ceo and board at that time. The talks went promisingly, and a satisfactory agreement was struck. One that would, at the very least, give EVe some breathing room. Evidently, for all its bluster, the vaunted TexArcan corporate restructuring of LNA was not proving to be as smoothly efficient and remarkably self-sustaining as planned. It needed a modicum of interaction, at least, with another major economy. Such was the opening EVe had been hoping for. On the night before their departure, however, Harrods encountered a subsubceo at the ColumbiaBar. Something of his mid-level counterpart among the TexArc delegates. The man was well into his drinks. He was brash. He was insulting. He was self-absorbed. He repeatedly referred to Harrods and the EVe communicants as “you fucking loser libby gayboys.” He bragged that, in his days as a young turk, he’d been part of the neotrumper bloc that pulled the atomic trigger on the Glassea. “That was huge. That took real balls,” he praised himself. “That was an act of great, great statesmanship, my friend. Probably the greatest ever. Pure stable genius. Unbelievable. Everybody said so. The world had never seen anything like it before.” He also let Harrods in on a little secret. That it had been TexArc, not the local raghead radicals, who tacnuked Tel Aviv in 2039. “Just to make good and fucking sure the shit hit the fan hard, you know what I mean, pal?” He’d laughed hard over that disclosure, clapping Harrods on the shoulder and ordering them another round of drinks. “I mean, what’s the point of having nukes if you’re not going to use them?” For a complete ass, the man was quite good-natured about his belligerence. “You wine-drinking and cheese-eating libby buttfuckers just don’t have the stones to make the really hard calls like that,” he continued once their drinks arrived. “You know what I mean? And this new deal of yours you just made with our pussy ceo? That loser piece of shit?” He lowered his voice and looked about the bar before saying anything more. “Well, pal, I wouldn’t hold your fucking breath. Those Benedict Arnolds are about to become crispy critters. Losers on toast. And I’m talking real soon.” He touched the tip of his index finger to the side of his nose, winked, and nodded cryptically. “Just a word to the wise, bud. One minor underling to another.” He clapped Harrods on the shoulder again. Then, grinning nastily, he switched his index finger, touching the side of his nose, for his middle finger. “There is one thing you can take to the bank, though, you wad-swallowing comrade son of a bitch.” Here the man had made them put down their drinks, square their faces, lock their eyes. “We’re coming for you. It’ll be later now than sooner. But we’re on our fucking way. Don’t doubt that for a New York minute.” Harrods had finished his drink, offered his good-night, and paid little serious mind to the barfly braggadocio. Then one week later the TexArcan capital meg was satchel nuked—and with it their corporate leadership vaporized. The very next day, a second, even larger meg further up their east coast was nuked. At that point TexArc went dark. Soon thereafter their global aggression redoubled. The agreement negotiated with EVe, of course, never took effect.
“As you know, three years ago Countermeasures was able to pull the first images off of ArcNet since 2060. When I saw him, well, I can assure you, Sinalco, a good chill ran the length of my spine. He was the same man I had met that night in the bar two decades earlier. And I do mean the same man. Oh, he’s been digitally enhanced to make his hair ever the more blond and his eyes that cold blue, but it’s him to be sure.” Harrods pauses a moment to calculate. “I was forty-one at the time. Give or take a year, so was he. When I saw his image three years ago, however, he hadn’t aged a day. And now, with all the vidfeed you’ve provided, it’s even more apparent. So, you see, there can be no doubt.”
Reluctantly, Sinalco purses her lips. “I can see then. Okay.”
“And that is why you are here, Sinalco. You are my fire with fire.”
“Yes. I see.”
Harrods permits his teek time to cogitate on the matter. After an interlude when she says nothing more, he presses on.
“Now, if you would, please, give me an account of all you’ve done to put him off his guard.”
Sinalco recaps from the beginning the long game they’ve played. She trolls ArcNet clumsily to attract his attention. The Wobbly feed then the EVe foray team are enticed by him into TexArc. Once inserted, she plays at rebellion, turning Servs and even overrunning BoiCity. He thinks this paltry uprising will provide him with the in-house propaganda he needs to motivate Terds against EVe. She then tosses in a wrench—the taste that turns ArcAir Terds. He has no choice but to counter with devastating force in order to contain that taste. She ups the ante by streaming that taste into the socially volatile Pacific Coast. He’s now in something of a panic.
“So, at this point,” Harrods clarifies for himself, “he’s consumed with capturing the makers of this menacing taste?”
“Exactly.”
“And he thinks those makers are Mall and Brand?”
“Yes.”
“And no one else? He suspects nothing of you and your part in all of this? Because if he is alerted to your existence...”
Harrods’ voice trails off. Sinalco reassures him.
“Non. He has now no idea.”
“But once he has them, he might develop an idea. They will talk.”
“Mall will not. I know. And I make Brand believe she herself does all the teeking to feed her taste deeper into the ArcNet. She thinks she is the tech genius.”
“You never tipped your particular gifts to her, then? You are sure?”
“Of course. And besides, I am giving him one more show. A really big one to distract him more.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“Enron will assassinate him.”
“My word. You do have a flair for spectacle.”
Their subterrene hums along at pace. The more minutes that pass by, the farther they are out of harm’s way. All they can do now is cross their fingers and wait. Hope they’ve seeded the affluenza virus at the root of TexArc power. After a good while, Harrods remembers Mall’s gift. He pulls the bundle from his thigh pocket. He unwraps the deer jerky tentatively. Gives it a sniff. Touches his tongue to it. Gnaws off a trial morsel. When his saliva softens the dried meat, its salty, gamy tang brings tears to his eyes.
