The Corporation Wars: Dissidence (7 page)

The tide had come in fast and was now retreating. Carlos and Nicole went up the steps and around the side of the café and turned left along the arcade.

“Leaving without paying!” Carlo scoffed. “Is it communism yet?”

“Certainly not,” said Nicole, promptly and proudly. “After the war the United Nations sorted out all that old crap for good. By then most of the economy was on autopilot. Robots did the work and algorithms made the decisions. You could have run all of capitalism on one box, people said. So they put it in a box, and buried it. The machines get on with the job. Everyone’s an equal shareholder. Birth shares are inalienable, and death duties are unavoidable. The estate tax is one hundred per cent. In between, you can buy and sell and earn as much as you like.”

In the light of what Nicole had told him earlier about the Security Council’s post-war global reign of terror, Carlos suspected that this breezy tale was the primary-school version of a much more complicated and conflicted history.

“I… see,” he said, sceptically. “You got a market running in the background with free access as a user interface? Sounds legit.”

She turned to him and laughed. “It is. And it keeps everyone happy, which is the point.”

Carlos wondered if this was indeed the point: maybe keeping him—and the other walking dead soldiers whose existence she’d implied—happy in the notion that they’d be fighting on the side of a good society, was exactly what her account of this improbable-sounding arrangement was devised to do. A distant democratic Earth that fulfilled the promises of utopia without having actually made them in the first place might be as unreal, or at least extrapolated, as the pavement beneath his feet.

She misread his frown.

“So don’t worry, I did pick up the tab.”

“I didn’t see you do it.”

“It’s automatic. Think of it as a debit chip under the skin, though that is not quite how it is, even in the real world.”

“I would have left a tip,” Carlos grumbled.

“The thought does you credit.”

He had to laugh. “Could I have, though?”

“Oh yes. You have a chip, too. You have an income here, and you can spend it, and earn more. But money is not what you came here to earn.”

“I didn’t
come here
to earn anything,” said Carlos, beginning to resent lugging the weight of his kitbag in the heat while Nicole strolled along chatting. “I didn’t exactly come here of my own free will.”

“Free will!” said Nicole. “Yes, indeed, that’s what you’re here to earn.”

They had almost reached the end of the arcade. She stopped outside the double swing doors of the last entrance on the strip. “Ah, here we are. The Digital Touch.”

It was quite a respectable-looking bar, all polished hardwood and mirrors and marble tops and chrome fittings and wrought-iron table legs. A dozen customers and a couple of bar staff showed no curiosity or welcome. Nicole marched between the long bar and a row of small round tables to a wider room with a big glass ocean-view patio door that opened to a wide wooden deck sticking out over the beach. Carlos followed, hugging his kitbag vertically and awkwardly like a drunk dancing partner. He mumbled apologies to the ones and twos of people at the tables or on bar stools as he brushed past.

Out on the deck and back to sea breeze and far horizon and the startling (again, but a little less so now) double-take sight of a segment of the rings. Not the sun: Carlos was relieved to see that an awning kept the deck in shade. Around two adjacent tables in the far corner sat a group of people, dressed like he was in olive-green T-shirts or singlets, combat trousers and pale brown suede desert boots. Nicole’s first footfall on the deck turned heads. The laughter and loud talk over drinks and smokes died on the air.

A plastic seat tipped back and clattered as they all scrambled to attention. Clenched right fists were raised to shoulder height, then upraised hands clapped above heads in a rattle of applause. Nicole must have given them a far harsher bollocking and indoctrination than she’d given him—no “let’s-do-lunch” and chat for these guys, he guessed. They all remained standing, arms pressed rigid to their sides.

Nicole was looking at him.

“Salute!” she mouthed.

Oh. Of course. Show the lady some respect. Carlos dropped his kitbag, straightened his back and jerked his right fist to his shoulder, then drew himself to attention, eyes on Nicole.

After what looked like a moment of annoyed puzzlement she stepped back to his side and whispered in his ear: “Tell them, ‘At ease.’”

“What?”

“It’s
you
they’re standing up for and saluting, you dumb fuck!”

“What the—”

“Now!”

“Oh, uh…” Carlos waved both hands in a “sit down” gesture. “At ease, everyone.”

They all relaxed, and resumed their seats after a brief and excruciatingly embarrassing chorus of shouts:

“Viva, Carlos! Viva, Carlos! Viva, viva, viva, Carlos!”

What the fuck? What the fucking fuck was all that about?

Nicole had dragged his kitbag to beside the deck rail, and now pulled out a chair for him. Not entirely sure what to do, he repeated the courtesy for her and sat down beside her after she was seated. Everyone seemed happy with this. Carlos looked from one beaming, awestruck face to another as Nicole introduced them, and one by one shook hands across the shoved-together tables.

Belfort Beauregard, a tall and muscular guy with close-cropped fair hair, a cut-glass English accent and a kindly smile, who held himself very straight in the chair and struck Carlos as the only one here with anything like a military bearing, ever alert.

Taransay Rizzi, a short, dark, stocky Scottish woman with fine features and a flash of irony in her eyes.

Chun Ho, even taller than Beauregard, with an Australian accent, a swimmer’s shoulders and a wary nod.

Waggoner Ames, a big, bearded computer scientist from Idaho, who was the only one whose name Carlos recognised, a legend and rumour in the Acceleration.

Maryam Karzan, a Kurdish woman who seemed about thirty and claimed she’d been shot in Istanbul at the age of ninety-five and who looked, for the moment at least, permanently delighted with her situation.

Someone stuck a beer in front of Carlos.

“Cheers,” he said, raising it. Bottles and glasses clinked. Everyone looked at him as if expecting him to say something. He took a quick cold gulp, and swallowed again.

“Look, guys, comrades, whatever… uh, this is very gratifying and thanks for the welcome and all that but I keep thinking you must be mistaking me for somebody who deserves all this. And I’m guessing it’s because you’re all Axle”—vigorous nods all round, they looked like they were about to start saluting and cheering all over again—”and I kind of gathered from Nicole here that we’re all pretty much persona non grata with the current, uh, regime, I mean government or whatever it is—”

“The Direction,” Nicole interjected.

“Figures,” said Carlos. That raised some wry smiles. “Anyway, what I’m saying is, can someone please tell me what this is all about?”

They all looked at each other, then at Nicole.

“You didn’t tell him?” Beauregard asked.

Nicole shook her head. “I thought it best he heard it from you first. He might not have believed it from me.”

“Well—” began Beauregard.

“I should tell him,” Karzan interrupted, leaning forward. “I was the last of us to be killed.”

“Good point,” said Beauregard.

The others returned solemn nods.

“Two years and three months after you,” Karzan told Carlos. “That was when I died. Even then, after so many great battles, you were still world famous. The hero of Docklands! You were the first great martyr of the Acceleration. You took so many of the enemy with you! In the back streets little pictures of you were stuck to lamp posts and to doors and to the stocks of the fighters’ Kalashnikovs. You were known as Carlos the Terrorist. You inspired us and you were hated by the Reaction.”

She swigged from her bottle and sat back. “That’s why you must lead us now.”

Carlos had listened to this with horror almost as great as that with which he’d watched the recordings of his heroic feat.

He shook his head. “No, no. I haven’t got the experience to lead anyone. Pick someone else.”

The others exchanged admiring glances.

Ames laughed abruptly. “We’re Axle, dude. We wouldn’t want a leader who’d
want
to be leader. You’ll do.”

Carlos couldn’t help thinking of the choosing of the messiah in
The Life of Brian
. He tried not to smile.

“No, I can’t—”

Nicole leaned in and spoke sharply. “I think you’ll find you can,” she said.

She shot a stern covert glance at Carlos, with an almost imperceptible nod. Play along.

Carlos spread his hands. “All right. If you insist.”

Everyone cheered again.

There was an awkward pause as Nicole disappeared into the bar for more drinks. Nobody seemed sure what to say.

“How long have you all been here?” Carlos asked, ice-breaking.

“A few days,” said Ames. “I was the first. Nicole met me off the bus from the spaceport, brought me up to speed, left me to my own devices. Not that I have any devices, ha-ha! The others turned up one by one over the next four days. Same story. Taransay arrived yesterday.”

“Hell of a busy spaceport.”

Ames cackled, from somewhere deep in his throat. “You know, I think that spaceport may be just a sort of false impression they put in our minds to make the transition seem vaguely plausible. That’s how I’d do it.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

Shrugs spread like a ripple around the table.

“Mademoiselle Pascal says AIs,” said Karzan, mindfully building a cigarette. She ran the gummed edge of paper across the tip of her tongue, eyes bright on Carlos, and rolled up with a flourish. “Who’re we to doubt her?”

Beauregard clapped Ames’ shoulder. “Comp Sci Spec Ops, that’s who!”

Ames grinned. “I don’t doubt her. It’s just—”

Whatever he was about to say was lost as Nicole returned with a tray of beer bottles. She put the tray down and then backed to the deck’s balustrade and hand-hopped herself on to its smooth mahogany handrail. There she sat poised and elegant, bottle in hand, legs crossed. She had their attention.

“Listen up,” she said. “I’ve told each of you where we are and you why you’re here. You’re here because you’re criminal, terrorist scum, and you’re here to fight. What I haven’t told you is who you’re fighting for, how you’ll fight, what’s expected of you and what’s in it for you.

“You’re fighting for the Direction, which as far as you’re concerned is me. Obviously the Direction itself is a whole passel of parsecs away, so it has an AI module in this space station—onsite autonomous, but ultimately answerable to the folks in the big building way back there in NYC and the people who elected them, yadda yadda. That module is in overall charge of the mission. I’m its plenipotentiary in this simulation, and in the company you now work for. The Direction likes to outsource as much as possible. Your immediate employer is a law enforcement company called Locke Provisos, hired by an exploration company, Astro America. Locke Provisos is a subsidiary of the top law company Crisp and Golding, Solicitors. You needn’t worry about the details—the companies are all fucking AIs anyway, it’s all accounting at the end of the day. The bottom line is: Locke Provisos pays your wages, which cover your housing and pretty much anything you can reasonably consume in here. It also—”

Ames raised a hand.

“Yes?” said Nicole.

“We’re in a sim,” Ames said. “We’re not exactly
consuming
anything, apart from processing power and electricity.”

Nicole frowned. “Like I said”—sounding testy—”it’s all accounting at the end of the day. For accounting purposes, resources are priced, even in sims. OK?”

Ames nodded, still looking unconvinced.

Nicole smiled slightly. “This isn’t some fucking utopia, you know. Anyway, when it comes to your weapons and equipment and so forth out in the real world, allocation is direct, as in any other military organisation. Locke Provisos supplies you with materiel and general instructions. Your ultimate employer is the Direction, and the buck here stops with me.

“Here’s how you’ll fight: after a bit of basic training to cohere you into a unit and then to get your reflexes used to operating a crude analogy of the machines you’ll be fighting in, you’ll all be loaded on to”—she waggled air quotes—”‘the bus to the spaceport.’ You’ll doze off. Trust me, you’ll doze off. You’ll wake up in space, in robot bodies. Frames, we call them. They’re quite adaptable bodies, they can plug into all kinds of machines—spacecraft, armoured crawlers, whatever. You’ll get the hang of it quickly—skill sets get downloaded on the fly, it’ll be a more a matter of mental adjustment than training. You’ll need just one more training exercise to familiarise yourselves with the machines. Then you’ll go into action.”

“Action against whom or what?” Chun asked. “Rax? Aliens?”

Someone tittered. Nicole stared down the levity.

“Much worse. Robots. Robots gone rogue.”

Carlos glanced at Ames, who closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Why not just use… other robots?” Rizzi queried. “Like drones.”

“Good question,” said Nicole. “We, of course, have combat machines. But there is a deep prohibition on their being directed by other robots, or by AIs. Even the AI that represents the Direction in mission control is hardwired against taking command decisions. Human consciousness must be in charge of any military action. That is the law and as I said it is hardwired.”

“Why?” Carlos asked.

“Anything less would be far too dangerous. Humanity in its collective wisdom has decided—you can agree or disagree, it makes no difference here—that it doesn’t want armed autonomous AI loose in the universe. That’s the decision, and the Direction enforces it, and the law companies and other DisCorporates here must abide by it. So you, my friends, are to be the requisite humans in the loop.”

“Even though we’ll be robots ourselves?” Ames asked.