Islands in the Net (28 page)

“Why not?” Laura said.

“Because Vienna could knock over Mali tomorrow—there's nothing to stop them. Another coup in Africa wouldn't even make the midnight news. If FACT were Mali, Vienna would've wiped them out long ago. But Singapore—well! Have you ever
seen
Singapore?”

“No, but—”

“Singapore hates Grenada. And they loathe Vienna. They hate the whole idea of a global political order—unless they're running it. They're fast and strong and reckless, and they've got a lot of nerve. They make those little Grenadian Rastas look like Bill Cosby.”

“Who?” David broke in. “You mean ‘Bing' Cosby?”

Arbright stared at him for a moment. “You're not really black, are you? Either that, or that's not really your baby, fella.”

“Huh?” David said. “Actually, uh, there's this, uh, suntan lotion.…”

Arbright cut the air with her hand. “It's okay, I've been to Africa, and they tell me I look French. But Mali—that's just disinformation. They've got no money and no motive, and it's an old rumor.…” The limo came to a stop and interrupted her.

“Oxford Towers, Miss Arbright.”

“That's our stop,” Emily said, putting her drink aside. “We'll get back to you, Dianne.”

Arbright sagged back into the cushions. “Look. I want those Grenada tapes.”

“I know.”

“And they won't be worth as much if Vienna makes a major move. That'll crowd everything else off the wires.”

“Car, open the door.” Emily got out. Laura and David hustled after her. “Thanks for the lift, Dianne.”

“Stay in touch.” The limo's doors slammed.

The bottom floor of Oxford Towers was a minor city. Healthy-looking fake sunlight poured from fluorescents over the little gourmet groceries and discreet boutiques. Private security dressed like Keystone Kops, cute tall hats and brass-buttoned coats. Meek-looking teenagers on recliner bikes cruised the pastel storefronts.

They ducked into a grocery for diapers and baby food and put it on Emily's card. They joined a group of two dozen bored tenants waiting on curved hardwood benches. An elevator arrived, and everyone shuffled aboard it and took a pew. Floors zipped past in ghastly mag-lev silence with only the occasional sniffle or rustle of newsprint.

They got off on Emily's floor and their ears popped. The air smelled just the least bit fried and stuffy here, fifty floors up. Arcane color-coded maps on the walls. They caught a hall bus. Crabbed little nooks and crannies branched off, leading into patios—what the sociologists called “defensible space.” Emily led them off the bus and up a nook. A security mouse scuttled along the floor—nasty-looking little microbot with fretted eyes and a muzzle clotted with dirt. Emily carded the door open.

Three-room place—stark Art Deco black-and-white. David took the baby into the bathroom, while Emily stepped into the little open kitchen. “Wow,” Laura said. “You sure have changed the place.”

“This isn't mine,” Emily said. “It's Arthur's. You know, the photographer.”

“That guy you were dating?” The walls were hung with Arthur's blowups: moody landscape studies, bare trees, a round-faced model in Garbo black-and-white with a cat-eating-cream look on her face …“Whoa,” Laura half laughed, pointing. “That's you! Hey! Nice.”

“You like it?” Emily said. “Me too. Almost unretouched—okay, a little digitizer work.” She peered into the freezer. “We got chicken almondine—catfish—Rajaratnam's Ready-2-Eat Lamb Curry …”

“Something bland and American,” Laura suggested. “Last thing I heard you and Arthur were on the outs.”

“Now we're on the very heavy ins,” Emily said smugly. “Sorry the food's not better, but Arthur and I, we don't do much
cooking
in here.… Y'know, they got my place staked out, but it's eight floors down—and in a rat nest like Oxford Towers, that might as well be in Dallas.… This place is as good a safehouse as anywhere. Arthur's cool about it—I think he's a little thrilled by all the hubbub, actually.” She grinned. “I'm his mystery woman.”

“Do I get to meet him?”

“He's out of town right now, but I hope so.” Emily slotted trays into the microwave. “I have a lot of hopes these days.… I'm thinking maybe I finally got it figured. The method of modern romance.”

Laura laughed. “Yeah?”

“Better living through chemistry,” Emily said, and blushed. “Romance. Did I tell you about it?”

“Oh, Em, no.” Laura reached into her jeans pocket, past a wad of change and some salted airline peanuts. “You mean these?”

Emily stared at the plastic vial. “Jesus! You mean you walked through Customs with a pocketful of Red-Hots?”

Laura winced. “They're not illegal, are they? I forgot all about them.”

“Where'd you get 'em?”

“In Grenada. From a hooker.”

Emily's jaw dropped. “Is this the Laura Webster I know? You're not high on those, are you?”

“Well, have
you
been taking them?”

“Just a couple of times.… Can I see that?” Emily shook the little vial. “Boy, these look like megadosage.… I dunno, I took 'em, they kind of made an idiot of me.… I guess you'd say I went crawling back to Arthur, after that fight we had, but it seemed to do us both good. I mean, maybe it's wrong to be too proud. Take one of those, and it makes the other stuff, the problems, feel kind of pointless.… You and David aren't having trouble, are you?”

“No …” Laura hedged. David emerged from the bathroom carrying the freshly changed baby. Emily quickly swept the vial into a kitchen drawer.

“What's up?” David said. “You two have that in-joke look again.”

“Just saying how y'all have changed,” Emily told him. “You know something, Dave? Black suits you. You look really good.”

“I put on some weight in Grenada,” David said.

“On you it looks fine.”

He half smiled. “That's it, flatter the moron.… You two talking company politics, right? Might as well let me hear the worst.” He sat on a black-and-chrome counter stool. “Assuming it's safe to talk in here …”

“Everyone's talking about y'all,” Emily said. “You Websters earned
beaucoup
brownie points on this one.”

“Good. Maybe we can coast a little now.”

“I dunno,” Emily said. “Frankly, you're gonna be in pretty heavy demand. The Committee wants you for a council session. You're our situation experts now! And then there's Singapore.”

“The hell,” David said.

“Singapore's Parliament is holding open hearings on their data-haven policy. Suvendra's there right now. She's been our contact with the Islamic Bank, and she's going to testify.” Emily paused. “It's kind of complicated.”

“Suvendra can handle that,” David said.

“Sure,” Emily said, “but if she handles it
really well
, her Committee election's a shoe-in.”

David's eyes widened. “Wait a minute—”

“You don't know how this has been playing Stateside,” Emily told him. “A month ago it was a side show, but now it's a major crisis. You heard how Dianne Arbright was talking. A month ago a top-rank journo like Arbright wouldn't have given me the time of day, but now suddenly we're sisters, very heavy solidarity.” Emily held up two fingers. “Something's gonna give, and soon. You can smell it coming. It's gonna be like Paris '68, or early Gorbachev. But global.” She was serious. “And we can be right on top of it.”

“We can be six feet fucking under it!” David shouted. “What are you up to? You been talking to those crackpots from Kymera?”

Emily flinched. “Kymera … That corpocracy stuff doesn't cut much ice with us, but it sure bears watching.… Vienna's acting screwy.”

“Vienna knows what it's doing,” David said.

“Maybe, but is it what we want?” Emily pulled plates and plasticware. “I think Vienna's waiting. They're gonna let it get bad this time—until somebody, somewhere, gives them political carte blanche. To clean house, globally. A new world order, and a new world army.”

“I don't like it,” David said.

“It's what we have now, but without the ratholes.”

“I like ratholes.”

“In that case, you'd better go talk some sense to Singapore.” The microwave dinged. “It's only for a few days, David. And Singapore's got a real government, not some goofy criminal front like Grenada's. Your testimony to their Parliament could make a major difference in their policy. Suvendra says—”

David's face turned leaden. “We're gonna get killed,” he said. “Don't you understand that yet? All the little ratholes are gonna be battle zones. There are people out there who would kill us for nothing at all, and if they can kill us for
profit
, they're
thrilled
! And
they know who we are
, that's what scares me. We're
valuable
now.…”

He rubbed his stubbled cheek. “We're getting the hell out of here, into a Lodge or a Retreat, and if you want to take care of Singapore, Emily, well, call Vienna and finance Rizome's Fightin' Armor Division. 'Cause they mean business these pirates and we're never gonna sweet-talk 'em into anything! Not till we put a tank on every fucking street corner! Until we find the sons-of-bitches who pressed the buttons that killed those drowned little kids in Grenada. But not my kid! Never again!”

Laura punctured the foil over her steaming chicken almondine. She felt no appetite. Those drowned bodies … stiff and dead and moving on dark currents … dark currents of rage. “He's right,” she said. “Not my Loretta. But one of us has to go. To Singapore.”

David gaped. “
Why?
”

“Because we're needed there, that's why. Because it has what we want,” she said. “Power to control our own lives. And the real answers. The truth!”

David stared at her. “The truth. You think you can get it? You think you're that important?”

“I'm not important,” Laura said. “I know I'm nothing much now—the sort of person who gets pushed around, insulted, and has her house shot up. But I might make myself important, if I worked at it. It could happen. If Suvendra needs me, I'm going.”

“You don't even know Suvendra!”

“I know she's Rizome, and I know she's fighting for us. We can't turn our backs on an associate. And whoever shot up our Lodge is going to pay for it.”

The baby started to whimper. David slumped in his chair. He spoke very quietly. “What about us, Laura—you and me and Loretta? You could die over there.”

“This isn't just for the company—it's for us! Running away can't make us safe.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” David said. “Stand on the dock and blow kisses? While you sail off to make the world safe for democracy?”

“So what? Women always did that in wartime!” Laura struggled to lower her voice. “You're needed here anyway, to counsel the Committee. I'll go to Singapore.”

“I don't want you to go.” He was trying to be curt and tough, lay it down in front of Emily like an ultimatum, but all the force was out of it. He was afraid for her, and it was half a plea.

“I'll come back and I'll be fine,” she said. The words sounded like a reassurance, instead of a refusal. But he wasn't any less hurt.

Taut silence. Emily looked wretched. “Maybe this isn't the time to talk about it. You've both been under a lot of strain. No one says you're acting non-R.”

“They wouldn't have to say it,” Laura said. “We know how to feel it without any words.”

David spoke up. “You're going to do it no matter what I say to you, aren't you.”

It was no use hesitating now. Better to get it over with. “Yes. I have to,” she told him. “It's gotten to me now. It's inside me, David. I've seen too much of it. If I don't work through this somehow, I'll never really sleep again.”

“Well,” he said. “Then it's no use arguing, is it? This is where I beat you into submission, or threaten divorce.” He got off his bar-stool, jerkily, and began pacing. Wired with tension, his feet sluffing the carpet. Somehow she forced herself to stay quiet and let him struggle with himself.

At last he spoke aloud. “I guess we're in the thick of it now, whether we like it or not. Hell, for all we know, half of Rizome's on some terrorists' hit list, just because we took a stand. If we cower to criminals, we'll never live it down.” He stopped and looked at her.

She'd won. She felt her face, set stiff and stubbornly, break into a smile. Helpless and radiant, a smile for him. She was very proud of him. Proud just because of what he was; and proud, too, that Emily had seen it.

He sat on his barstool again and locked eyes with her. “But you're not going,” he told her. “I am.”

She took his hand and looked at it, held it in her fingers. Good, strong, warm hand. “That's not how it works with us,” she told him gently. “You're the idea man, David. I'm the one who hustles people.”

“Let me get shot,” he said. “I couldn't stand it if anything happened to you. I mean that.”

She hugged him hard. “Nothing will happen, sweetheart. I'll just do the goddamned job. And I'll come back. Covered with glory.”

He broke away from her, got to his feet. “You won't even give me that much, will you?” He headed for the door. “I'm going out.”

Emily opened her mouth. Laura grabbed her arm. David left the apartment.

“Let him go,” Laura said. “He's like that when we fight. He needs it.”

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Laura felt close to tears. “It's been real bad for us. All that time online. He has to blow off some steam.”

“You're just jet-lagged. And Net-burned. I'll get you some Kleenex.”