Infomocracy Page 12
“They’re not going to cancel it,” Suzuki says. “I doubt they’ll even postpone it. Tokyo should be set up to vote within the next week, easy, and that’s all that really matters. Time for us to get back in the game—without, of course, letting up here.”
“So…” Ken says.
“Same assignment as before. Check the temperature, quietly, in key areas. I don’t need to tell you where—start in Istanbul or Lima maybe; work from there. And keep an eye out for that Liberty stuff. I don’t think they’ll give up on total world domination out of sympathy for the unfortunate victims of a natural disaster.” He claps Ken on the shoulder. “We’ll talk about your next role after the election.”
Ken is bubbling on the glow of that for the next hour. This is exactly how he has risen up the ranks at Policy1st so fast. Suzuki-san sees that he is something special. Now he can add emergency response to his resume. Not that he has to add it, because Suzuki knows it’s there. The thing is, he’s never doubted Ken. And what will this new position be? Ken had been hoping for something new after the election. He’s proven himself again in this campaign, worked harder and longer than anyone else. He’s shown he’s smart. And the campaign job is about to evaporate anyway, so he will need to go on to something new, something bigger and better. But how much better? What if Policy1st should rise in the ranks unexpectedly too, what if Policy1st should—he doesn’t even want to let himself think it, but it’s not impossible—what if Policy1st should win the Supermajority? What kind of roles might that open for him?
He decides not to get his hopes up.
And just like that, his mood plummets. After all, isn’t this how it’s always worked? Suzuki praises him, dangles approval in front of him, throws him a raise or a new title. It’s usually less than he secretly expected, and he always waits, knowing that it takes time, that he’s come so far already. But maybe they’re squeezing him, getting as much for as little as they can. He wonders if the Policy1st powers that be have already discounted the Liberty threat and are putting him on it to keep him busy. He discards that idea almost immediately; it’s the end of election season, and they need every ten fingers and functioning brain they can get put to good use.
* * *
Before he leaves, he invites Mishima out for a coffee. Even a day or two before, that would have been impossible, but walking from the Information hub to the Policy1st offices that morning he had noticed the lights on in the place on the corner, a middle-aged man wearing a germ filter sweeping up the dust inside. On his way back, now alert, he sees two other places with motion inside, and the place on the corner has a blackboard with an encouraging がんばろう！written above the available offerings (coffee, tea, and hot water). Mishima is at first reluctant to leave the crow—he’s not sure she’s gone outside since comms came back up—but since he’s about to ditch town, she agrees.
“Plus,” she says, as they go down the stairs of the Information hub, “we have to support the local economy.”
The man who runs the coffee shop is certainly happy to see them. He comes up and pulls out their chairs, and then tells them about his experience in the earthquake until they hear the water boil (he is using an old-fashioned kettle to save energy). He startles and rushes to it, the back of one large hand at the corner of his eye. There is a minor rumble, but it dies away almost immediately.
Ken glances at Mishima. Her eyes are darting around the room, and he wonders if she’s avoiding his gaze or still spooked by that tremor. But then she shifts her chair and leans toward him at an odd angle and he realizes that she must have been figuring out feed cameras. She takes his hand, spreads the palm, and scribbles something with the tickling rounded stub of a worn pencil. Ken looks. Nine alphanumerics. He raises his eyes to Mishima’s waiting stare and nods. She spits neatly into his hand and rubs it discreetly, so that by the time the man comes back with their coffees (no milk yet, but the sugar is unrefined brown straight from Okinawa via an aid shipment), the numbers are long gone and it looks like they’re affectionately holding hands. Ken finds he is close to tears himself but shakes it off to hold up his side of a lively discussion about reconstruction politics. She leaves first. He, feeling more adult than he ever has (secret affair! With an important, mysterious woman!) takes a long last look before twitching at the lapels of his jacket and stepping into the cold.
“Good luck,” he calls to the shopkeeper from the door.
* * *
After the first few days, when no one talked of anything but the earthquake, Okinawa is returning to normal. Yoriko can finally pick up a fare without immediately receiving an onslaught of earthquake commentary and engaging in mutual head-shaking and concern. She has spoken to Suzuki, and not only is he still alive but the disaster holiday is over; time to get back to work.
The campaigns have gotten back to work too. When Yoriko returns to the volunteer aid-packaging place, it is still running, but the only people there are a few grandmothers who seem more interested in chatting with each other than boxing relief goods, and one of the formerly smiling greeters drinking the free coffee in the corner. Yoriko wavers. She came to the volunteer site because it felt less intense than the campaign events, but with no one around, it’s almost scarier. She starts to retreat, but too late: the greeter has seen her (or, possibly, been alerted by Liberty’s security team).
“Yes?” she says, hurrying over with the smile clawing its way back over her face. She’s aggressively cute, and Yoriko feels both old and unexpectedly angry. “Can I help you? Did you come to volunteer?”
“It doesn’t look like you need more volunteers here,” Yoriko says as coldly as she can, nodding at the gossiping obaasan, and turns to leave.
“No, wait,” the girl calls, following her toward the lot where her taxi is stored. “You were here before, weren’t you?”
Yoriko hesitates again. “Yes, I came by after the earthquake because I wanted to help.”
“You’re not a Liberty citizen, are you?” The greeter’s smile has shrunk to a more normal size, but Yoriko warily notes the continuing shine in her eyes. She could break back into full manga mode at any second.
“No,” Yoriko says. “Not at the moment. But I’m still undecided for the election…”
That’s all it takes. The girl busts out in uncontrollable bubbliness.
“Oh, isn’t it exciting? Let me show you around! We’re doing such marvelous things for the people affected by the—”
“I saw it when I was here a few days ago,” Yoriko says. She knows that she should want this, that she should be trying to see everything she can, but she also feels a rising panic.
“Come on,” the girl says, sounding almost whiny through the glare of her enthusiasm. “It’ll be fun! If you don’t want to see the earthquake relief section, I can show you the campaign area?”
“Well,” Yoriko says. She glances at the door one more time. “Okay, fine, but I have to leave soon.”
CHAPTER 13
In a “tribute” to the earthquake victims (unbeknownst to either of them, Mishima and Domaine share a desire to retch every time they hear that phrase), the election committee decides to hold the second, and now last, debate in Kansai. Since Mishima is already in the area, her boss asks her to join the team covering it, doubled up as intelligence and security. Mishima isn’t thrilled with the assignment. She wants to keep working on the earthquake response. They’ve barely done anything yet. It’s true that the pace has slowed, and that reinforcements have finally arrived: Information drones by the dozens, showing up by boat at first and now by air. They came in clean and eager, and Rachchivandrum has parceled them off, seconding them to help centenal governments that were badly hit or putting them on more standard tasks: intel sorting or analysis or broadcasting.
Mishima thinks they’re all too happy and excitable, not properly steeped in the horror of what happened, but she knows that’s probably not true, or not important, or maybe both. She’s more concerned that nobody is thinking about the big pictu
re, the longer-term solutions. She can feel the difficult problems of reconstruction sticking their thorns into the pretty postdisaster unity of the first couple of days. Already, Heritage is under attack for being too slow to respond; people seem to think that being the Supermajority makes them a superpower. The Tokyo municipal coalition is wobbling as members squabble over relief funds. Sure, there are permanent staff members in Tokyo who will be dealing with these issues, but Mishima doesn’t want to leave all of this for a front-row seat to politicians sniping at each other.
She also suspects the move is partly to keep her off the Liberty follow-up. Yelinka Korbin, who has softened considerably since they shared the floor of her crow, tells her that they thought she was exaggerating the threat. “They don’t believe it’s anything more than an empty campaign promise. And here’s the thing.” Korbin glances around. Senior analyst though she is, she doesn’t merit an office in the open-plan third floor of the Information hub, and they brought their tea out to the external staircase. The weather is raw and there is nowhere to sit, but there is no one else outside to overhear them.
“Look, this is my interpretation,” Korbin goes on. “Nobody said this to me directly. But there’s a lot of concern over the possibility of Heritage winning again.”
Mishima nods. She’s heard that undercurrent too: each term of incumbency, the thinking goes, makes it harder to topple the Supermajority. One or two more cycles with Heritage on top, and nobody will bother holding elections. Mishima thinks that’s a bit extreme, but she can understand the concerns, and William Pressman hasn’t helped with his comments at the last debate.
“They don’t want to put extra scrutiny on Liberty, because they’re among the top contenders to beat Heritage this time around.”
Mishima scuffs her boot on the landing. A lone cigarette butt has been crushed into the corner; illegal in this centenal, she remembers. “That’s ridiculous,” she finally says, letting disgust thicken her voice. “Either it’s democracy or it isn’t.”
Korbin laughs. “You know better than that. Anyway, it’s mainly because they don’t take it seriously. Harassing Liberty over a bogus threat is as bad as not harassing them over a real one.”
Korbin doesn’t buy it either, Mishima realizes. Remembering how much easier it was to convince Tabby in Singapore, she wonders if the Information upper echelon is completely out of touch. “What would I need to convince them?” Mishima wonders out loud.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” Korbin tips back the last of her tea and turns to go inside. “But with the earthquake response, they’re going to be even less interested.”
After that discussion, Mishima tries to look on the bright side of the debate assignment. Attending in person, she can watch for any discrepancies that might be smoothed out in the broadcast, and she’ll have a broad enough mandate to report them. Looking presentable is part of the job, but Mishima doesn’t feel like wearing the braided dress again so soon, and she doesn’t have anything else fancy enough with her, so she skims Information images until she finds something she likes: tight along the bodice with plenty of flow in the long sleeves and skirt, with miniscule cutouts in the shape of stars tracing a tiny galaxy under the navel and up the ribs. She picks out an indigo shade with a subtle sparkle, buys it, prints it out, and sews some minor alterations by hand. The dress turns out well, but studying herself in the mirror, Mishima is struck by the pallor of her face, the shadows under her eyes. The earthquake, shimmering like a mirage. She has pushed it out of her thoughts so effectively that she hasn’t even dreamed about it yet, but she knows that she will.
Mishima decides that a facial massage and an elaborate coif are what she needs to lift her appearance, and perhaps her spirits too, to their usual exceptional level. She noodles around on Information till she finds a photo of the interlocking braided look she wants, then shoots it off to the stylists within a reasonable range of the debate site. When the bids come in, she cross-references with reviews, picks one with a midrange price and reviews that include “relaxing,” “informal,” “pampering without posh.”
* * *
Yoriko does not get to leave soon.
The overenthusiastic greeter does not take her to the campaign area. In retrospect, and Yoriko has plenty of time to think about this as she waits in an empty room for what she can only assume will be an interrogation, it was silly to imagine that Liberty would show an outsider their campaign office, or that it would be in the citizen’s center. She supposes she imagined a campaign volunteer area or something; that seems more plausible. Instead, she was led down a long corridor, and when at one point she looked back over her shoulder, there was a large man walking behind them.
Maybe she should have tried to run then. But he could have been a staffer going from one room to another, and even if he wasn’t, Yoriko doubts she could have outrun him. They stopped at a door with another large man standing outside of it. He nodded to the greeter, who cheerfully told Yoriko, “I’ll leave you here,” and did. The man who had been following them took her place, and Yoriko was ushered into the room, which was empty except for racks of Liberty promotional material lining one wall. She turned around and the man who had been waiting in front of the door said: “Please wait here for the head of security.” He said it very politely, using all the most honorable forms, but then he shut the door and, she imagined, went on standing right outside it.
There’s no signal for her handheld and nothing to do but read the pamphlets or watch the animated advids. Yoriko refuses on principle to look at the propaganda, and instead spends the first hour combing through the existing data on her handheld to see if she can find anything helpful.
Nothing.
If she could only connect to Information, she could call up the plans for this building, see who the head of security for this centenal is (or did they mean for all of Liberty on the island? In the region? She could look them up, too), review some self-defense techniques, check on her legal standing, both in this centenal and in her own. If she could connect to Information, she could call the police, or her centenal’s emergency support team, or at least Suzuki-san.
She doesn’t even have maps stored on her handheld, which now that she thinks about it is pretty stupid for a taxi driver. What if there was a disaster here that knocked out communications, like the earthquake did in Tokyo? Downloading hard maps will be the first thing she does when she gets out of here.
If she gets out of here.
To calm herself, she starts trying to build a map of the immediate surroundings in her head. She’s driven through this centenal often enough, and she finds that she can come up with a pretty good, if idiosyncratic, rendering. She doesn’t know which streets she doesn’t know about, but at least she could find her way home. She has plotted eight different routes before the door opens.
The man who enters is not as large as the two thugs, but to Yoriko’s eye, practiced from assessing clients, he looks hard. The skin on his face is worn like a thick seashell, and she notes that the first two knuckles on both hands are heavily calloused. He doesn’t touch the door; the big guy outside opened it for him and closes it behind him.
“Now,” says the head of security, “it seems we have a problem.” His tone is less menacing than bored. “From what I understand, you’ve been spying on us.” He raises a placating hand as Yoriko starts to protest. “Please. We are quite sure; we have excellent surveillance.” He starts to pace; there are no chairs in the room, not even tatami. “Spying on the government is a felony according to Liberty legal code, section 9, paragraph 118. In the six months prior to an election, the offense is aggravated.”
“I didn’t—I don’t—” starts Yoriko.
Again, the hand, palm out, pleading with her not to bore him further by dragging this out. “I know. You didn’t actually find anything useful.” Not only do they know she’s a spy, they know she’s not a good one. “That doesn’t mitigate the penalty according to the law, but we do have some
leeway, and we prefer to use it when we can. So. Do us all a favor here. Let us know who you’re working for. You’ll be prohibited from entering Liberty centenals for a period of twelve years—tough luck for a taxi driver—unless, of course, you manage to become a citizen.”
Yoriko wants to ask what will happen if she doesn’t tell them, but she doesn’t trust her voice not to shake, so she waits. After a pause, he gives her the rest of it.
“The offense carries a sentence of five to seven years normally, ten to fifteen in the election period.” He’s rattling all this off like a tour guide who’s been on the same route too long. It makes Yoriko wonder how many of these he has to do a week. “Now, as I said, we have plenty of evidence and I have no doubt about a conviction, but that does take time. With the election in under a week, we’d like to know who sent you sooner rather than later. We’ll keep you here until we can convince you.” A pause to let that sink in. “Or you take the sweetheart deal and collect your taxi right now. You won’t have to look at the inside of another Liberty centenal until after the next election.”
Then he stops and waits.
* * *
Ken has barely landed in Dubai to change planes when he gets a message from Suzuki. Apparently, one of the promo vids taken of Policy1st staff hard at work for their constituents after the earthquake caught Ken in the background.
“At my desk, hard at work for our constituents,” Ken says.
“I’m sorry,” Suzuki says. “They should have checked more carefully. Usually they do, but with the emergency…”
It’s an excuse Ken is starting to get tired of, from himself as well as from others. “So?”