The Beam: Season Two (6 page)

Micah crossed one leg over the other then took a deep breath.
 

“Why do the parties exist, Isaac?” he said.

“To provide two options, to suit two different kinds of people — those who want security first and those who want freedom first, each willing to sacrifice the other attribute in order to get…”
 

“That’s the civics class answer.” Micah said, stopping him. “But you know it’s not the real one. The answer is the first part: to provide two options. It doesn’t matter what those options are. And do you know why?”
 

Isaac rolled his eyes. He’d heard this lecture plenty.
Unfortunately
, thought Micah,
it never sank in.

“To provide a sense of choice,” Micah said. “It doesn’t matter if neither option is any good, so long as there’s choice. Something to give people the illusion of control. In reality, our society isn’t divided into Enterprise and Directorate. It’s much more accurately divided into rich and poor. Poor Enterprise, poor Directorate — between those two, the distinctions don’t matter. You and me? We may have different designations, but in actuality we’re in the same group: the wealthy. Almost everyone below us, no matter whether they’re Enterprise or Directorate, is in the poor group. You
do
see that, don’t you?”
 

Isaac sighed then sat in a chair opposite Micah. He wasn’t protesting, despite the repetitiveness of the lesson. Maybe he wasn’t irredeemable after all.
 

“Shift isn’t about security versus freedom or socialism versus capitalism,” Micah continued. “It isn’t about you versus me. It’s about giving the people of this union an
Us
and a
Them
. Whatever fate they end up with, our system gives them the illusion that they are
choosing
it. They’ll know who they can bond with and who they should blame for everything that’s wrong.
Us
and
Them
. It gives their lives a framework. It gives them an identity and a purpose.”
 

“I know,” said Isaac.
 

“You used to know
better
,” said Micah, shaking his head. “It’s easy to forget how hard things were when the parties were formed, but we can’t forget those days or their reasons, Isaac. The NAU is isolated from the rest of the world, and in a way, that makes our economy a house of cards. Sure, we have The Beam. It’s easy to feel like even the poorest people, only able to access through handhelds, old canvases, or even public terminals, have it all, but they don’t — and the worst thing in the world would be for everyone to realize that truth at the same time.”

Isaac sighed then stood.

“This thing with Natasha…” he said.
 

“She’ll do what she’ll do.”
 

“It’ll make Directorate look terrible. The parties are supposed to fight, but it’s lopsided if…” Something seemed to come to him. “It’ll
screw up the system
if one party has total dominance.”

Micah laughed. “No matter how good Enterprise looks, and no matter how much more sensible it is, Directorate will never want for members. Being Enterprise requires work, and does nothing to hide it. Directorate, on the other hand, grants its members permission to be lazy. That’s a powerful thing, and it’s why Directorate has so consistently held the Senate.” He smirked. “For now, anyway.”
 

“Directorate aren’t lazy. They’re harder, more honest workers than your connivers and criminals.”
 

Micah gave another small laugh. “Okay.”

“You have to stop Natasha, Micah. It’s not just insulting to the party. It’s insulting to me personally.”
 

“Exactly. To you
personally
.”
 

“As the perceived head of the Directorate.”
 

“Perceived. Personally.
What really matters here, Isaac? The good of the union or your precious feelings?”

“Please, Micah. It’ll ruin me. They’ll oust me.”

“Who
will oust you?”

“The Directorate Party. I’ll lose my position.”
 

Micah’s head turned slowly. He watched his brother, pushing down the urge to comment on his abject weakness.
 

“Let me be honest with you, Isaac. If it was possible to lose your position, you’d have been kicked out already. But the quarreling Ryans are too big of a draw to lose. They keep you because you’re my brother, and that means that your job is safe.”
 

“Micah…”
 

“What, Isaac?”
 

Isaac’s pleading eyes bored holes into Micah. He looked like a lost puppy. It made Micah want to kick him.
 

“Just…do it as a favor. Okay? A non-political, non-strategic favor I’m asking of you. As a brother.”

Micah sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
 

“Just get her to reframe it. Have them deny her permits for a few days. Suggest that she position it as a career reboot rather than an escape from slavery. She’s not just a high-profile defector, Micah. She’s my
wife
. The press will eviscerate me. Nobody will ever take me seriously again. She’ll stay with me, too, so every day I’ll have to sit there and take it, and the entire NAU will get to watch as she crushes my nuts in a vice. Isn’t it enough that she’s leaving? Do we really need her to rub it in my face, Shift or no Shift?”
 

Micah exhaled, his breath heavy. “Fine.”
 

“Thanks, Micah.”
 

Micah nodded.
 

From across District Zero, Isaac logged out of the simulation. His avatar blipped out of the library, and his little brother was left alone in the big chair against the bookshelf, fingers drumming on high-thread-count upholstery.

Chapter 4

Dominic was acutely aware of the armrests under his forearms. He couldn’t get comfortable. Fabric kept sticking to his skin. He was also aware of his sweat, but he didn’t want to speak aloud to the mag train’s canvas to request cooling. He felt as if he were engaged in a silent quarrel with the canvas and didn’t want to be the first to break the silence. Cracking first felt weak even though the canvas wasn’t human and didn’t care…and even though the train’s canvas didn’t touch the dirty one back at the NPS station where he’d made his deal with Agent Austin Smith.
 

Fuck technology,
thought Dominic.
Let that bitch speak first.
 

He fidgeted, feeling his arms stick to the armrests. He watched the countryside glide by outside the windows. The trick on a mag train was to never watch anything closer than a half mile away. You had to look into the distance and ignore the flashes that your brain might argue were trees, old utility poles, livestock fences, and houses. If you stared into the distance, the train’s breakneck pace was visually tolerable. You might be able to dupe yourself into believing you were on a conventional train pulling out of a station, its metaphorical sails set for romantic, far-off destinations. That was better than feeling like human cargo, expediently shuttled off into the Appalachian Mountains. Because after all, weren’t the mountains where Dominic had always disposed of his problems?

Crumb.

Chrissy.
 

Agent Austin hadn’t cared about either of Dominic’s earlier human transgressions. They’d started as troublesome remainders, and then were simply forgotten. It didn’t matter that Chrissy had never been sent to Respero as she should have, and apparently it didn’t matter that Crumb hadn’t either. The data theft at DZPD two weeks ago must have been Austin snooping for something to use against Dominic. It even made sense that the information thief had touched Dominic’s records of Crumb because it just meant the snoop was accumulating evidence of Dominic’s disobedience, like a squirrel storing nuts for winter. The agent had called him out. Dominic was a cop who questioned rules and followed his gut instead, just as Austin himself had done with the child diddler in his own story.
 

The data theft didn’t matter. No one was after him now that NPS had their deal. It made sense, too. Because why would anyone
else
be snooping for Dominic’s dirty laundry?
 

But as Dominic sat in the stuffy train compartment, he found that it didn’t settle. His honed instincts protested the idea like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit. But still, he forced himself to let it go. The bigger issue was the deal, and Leo, and the moondust. And, of course, Organa itself.
 

He’d trusted Leo. Worse: Leo, as a mentor, had helped to shape the way Dominic thought and looked at the world. That almost suggested that Leo had
taught
Dominic to trust him. Leo had gotten to Dominic before he was a cop with a sharpened nose able to smell bullshit. And Leo had lied. For all these years, Leo had lied to him.
 

Or had he? Dominic still wasn’t sure.
 

Everything that Austin had given him — in person during their session at the station then on a slip drive for Dominic to review later — seemed to suggest that the stories the agent had told Dominic about Leo were true. Leo really
had
run Gaia’s Hammer prior to Organa. He really
was
over 120 years old. And despite Dominic always seeing his old friend and mentor as an unenhanced hippie, he really
did
seem to have once been enhanced right out of his computerized asshole. Perhaps he’d had his nanos flushed so he could age naturally by the time he’d met young Dom Long, but there was an easy way to find out if he’d once been half machine. Specifically, if it were true, he’d still
be
half machine. If the metal under Leo’s skin didn’t interfere with his life today any more than it had helped him break skulls and smash through Plasteel all those years ago, there would have been no reason to have it removed. He’d still have it today…and that would make him heavy as a motherfucker, his secret on display for anyone who tried to pick him up.

Dominic glanced out the window, allowing himself a sigh. It was unfair to judge Leo and was unfair (and maybe unwise and naive) to have assumed Leo was above judgment in the first place. Either what Austin said about Leo’s troubling roots was true or it wasn’t, and until Dominic knew for certain — not through words, but through tangible evidence — there was no reason to think about it. And besides, even if Austin
was
right about Leo’s history, the fact that he’d lied about who he used to be meant little here and now. All it really proved was that Leo had once been an enemy of the state. It didn’t prove that he still was one, or that he ever would be again.
 

And he wouldn’t be. The idea was absurd.

Today, Leo was a hippie. Today, he eschewed technology and tried to live a simple life. He was too old and too granola to overthrow anything. Dominic knew Leo as he was today, and he knew his compound and the others in the village with him. The old man cared about his people and his dust. He cared about his ideals and his silly paper books. The world would be what it was, and today, Dominic felt quite certain that Leo wasn’t about to use a hammer’s strength to try and change it.
 

Now, on the train, there was simply no point in giving it any more thought. Dominic would be at the Organa compound soon, and he could look for answers then. His deal with NPS was, at the moment, irrelevant. Regardless of whether he’d promised to double-cross Leo, it would be his decision in the end. If Leo was dirty, he deserved what would come. If that turned out to be the case, Dominic would honor the NPS deal and give Austin all he needed to take the old man down. But if Leo was clean — in present and future even if not in his past? Well then, fuck Austin Smith and the NPS. Dominic Long wasn’t the kind of man who sold out blindly. He wasn’t like Omar.

Omar.

Dominic’s fists tightened, untrimmed fingernails digging into the meat of his heavily callused palm. Leo deserved benefit of the doubt, but Dominic would never,
ever
trust Omar again. He never should have believed in the man to begin with. The rungs of Omar’s ladder to affluence were fashioned from bones, and every slippery situation Omar had weaseled his way through had been lubricated with someone else’s blood.
 

Dominic had known all of that, of course, but despite being an intelligent man, he’d made ego’s most common mistake: thinking he knew better, and that things would be different for him. He’d reasoned that Omar needed Dominic as much as Dominic needed him. To his credit, that much had been true. But he hadn’t considered that there might be an even larger opportunity dangling above Omar’s head. He hadn’t considered that Omar had another plum in the offing: something that mattered to him even more.
 

Dominic wanted to kill Omar. He wanted to violate his policeman’s ethics, wrap his large fingers around Omar’s scrawny neck, and squeeze until spine merged with windpipe. But as satisfying as that would be, he couldn’t do it. Not only had the NPS given Omar immunity, but (and this was beyond humiliating) the obnoxious truth was that Dominic still needed him, even though the same wasn’t true for Omar.
 

There had been the emergency shipment of moondust, which Dominic’s phone call had put into play. Reluctantly, Dominic had to give Omar credit for that. He still hadn’t paid the dealer, and the sum for the tiny amount would be so small, it’d be inconsequential to Omar’s growing empire of corruption. Omar must have stuck his neck out to stash it, too, risking the wrath of his new NPS chums. At first, Dominic had thought that the only reason Omar would have done it was, impossibly, compassion. But then he’d decided that it was probably just good customer service because he’d known Dominic would have no choice but to run back to the man who’d betrayed him in order to do more business.