Infomocracy Read online

  “And there on that coast, there’s something going on with the shoreline. They’ve had a lot of erosion there recently; I don’t know what the cause is but it’s a big concern for everyone. Also, that’s where the American base was for decades. Even though it’s been gone almost as long, they still remember it, so you have to be very careful with anything that suggests it even remotely, anything that reminds people about colonialism or militarism in any form.”

  Ken is listening, nodding, recording everything. He has his own detailed map of the Ryukyus open, the projection glowing brighter than usual in the dusty, dim air between them, and is adjusting the color coding on the centenals the Okinawan is mentioning and adding notes of his own.

  “The thing you should know, though,” Amuru goes on, “Liberty is making a serious push.”

  “Sou desu ka?”

  “Yeah. Not so much with the 1China centenals; more with the Ryukyu nationalists. They’ve been telling people, quietly, that if enough of Okinawa’s centenals go to them and they become the Supermajority, they’ll annex what’s left of Japan.”

  Ken’s eyebrows shoot up. “They said that?”

  Amuru nods slowly, then adds, “Peacefully. They always say ‘annex peacefully.’”

  What does that even mean, “annex peacefully”? Ken’s grasp of twentieth-century history is dim, and he can’t find an analogy. “Don’t people realize they’re not seriously going to do it?” he asks. “I mean, they can’t be serious.”

  “Does that matter?” Amuru points out. “If they gain ground in Okinawa but do not become the Supermajority, no one will expect them to keep the promise, and you can be sure they will try to consolidate in the Ryukyus over the next decade.”

  “And if they do win the Supermajority?” Ken knows he shouldn’t even suggest the possibility. Campaigning 101 includes never admitting that an opponent’s victory is even conceivable, but he’s off balance.

  “Maybe they will do what they claim,” Amuru says. His eyes drop from Ken’s. “That promise, of annexing Japan and especially Satsuma—it is still very powerful for us.”

  “More powerful than micro-democracy? More powerful than peace?”

  “Micro-democracy has brought winners and losers in the Ryukyus, like everywhere else,” Amuru answers. “As for peace…” He shrugs, and fires off a four-character adage that Ken’s not familiar with. It seems to suggest peace without justice isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Or peace without vengeance. The phrasing is ambiguous.

  “Has it been recorded? This—” threat? Promise? “—slogan?”

  Amuru shrugs. “Wouldn’t you know that better than I do?” Ken is too busy composing an urgent message in his head to answer, and Amuru presses his advantage. “Let’s see your globe.”

  Ken expected that, expected it enough to prepare the globe he wants Amuru to see and store it in a special filepath as though it were the only one, but he’s still surprised to be asked. He supposes, as he goes through the motions of opening the file under LATEST PROJECTIONS, that he expected more sophistication from someone who brought a spear gun to a data fight.

  The globe he opens is purely speculative, and in most areas strategically optimistic, although their projections for mainland Japan are distinctly underplayed. The heavy spotting in China is possible but unlikely, and although Ken is hopeful for Java, it is still far too early and crowded there to be sure. As the globe spins, a darkened Middle East and Central Asia come into view, then a surprising amount of color through sub-Saharan Africa and—this much Ken feels is justified—large swathes of Europe, not just western. North America is its usual mostly bipolar patchwork, with isolated representation for Policy1st in some of the urban areas, and Latin America looks on this version like an intense battleground, pulsing dots in Caracas, Cartagena, Buenos Aires, and a dozen more cities showing voter events going on at that very moment.

  Amuru must know that this can’t all be true, or at least not verified. Maybe he wants to know what Ken, and the government he represents, want him to see. Or maybe he wants to see anything at this point, any intel about the way this contest is going, any hint that he can take back to share with others or keep close for secret reassurance. One thing Ken has learned in this job: people like to think they know things, even the unknowable.

  Whatever he’s looking for, Amuru grunts as if he’s found it. “Ganbatte iru, ne,” he comments, which Ken takes as a positive reaction. It would be tough to convince people to vote for them if they didn’t think they were working hard. “It would help,” Amuru goes on, “if you gave us a person to vote for. Ideally someone photogenic and smooth talking, like the others have.”

  It isn’t the first time Ken has gotten this request. “We want people to understand that they’re choosing a set of policies and principles, a way of life, not a person. Of course,” he adds as Amuru waves his hand, now alarmingly holding the spear gun, in annoyance, “we will have people representing us at the debates. Attractive, well-spoken people.”

  “People?” Amuru asks suspiciously.

  “We will have different representatives at each of the debates,” Ken explains, rewrapping his scarf.

  The older man, moving toward the door, leans close to Ken. “They have said that if they win, they will peacefully annex Japan. What do you think they will do to those centenals in Okinawa that belong to other governments, like yours?” His heavy eyes stare that idea into Ken’s brain, and then he disappears into the cold. “Wait at least an hour before you follow me out!”

  Ken shivers and finds a seat at a pachinko machine (a 2008 Evangelion Premium that once shelled out 28,830 yen to a lucky winner) to send off some heavily underlined messages and check the latest polls while he waits. At least he’ll be out of here earlier than he expected. Sixteen days until the vote and one of the corporates is threatening war. There’s a lot of work to do.

  * * *

  Mishima activates her crowdcutter and it springs from its microcrimped home in the clasps on her dress, a transparent vinyl shell shaped like a shark fin that lets her scythe through the mass of people glomming toward the sign.

  “Jorge!” she yells into her earpiece mic. Her vinyl wedge is pushing aside clingy couples, shoulder-hugging friends, and, as she gets closer to the building with the fire-writing on top, a dense mass of openmouthed spectators. “I’m on my way. Have whoever gets there first cover any rear exits; everyone else, meet me on the roof. Mariana, prepare the rebuttal.” She hates that word, rebuttal. If they had done their jobs right, the misinformation never would have gotten out in the first place. “It should be a projection the same size and position as those letters. Georgina, keep eyes on Domaine … That guy I was talking to … He’s connected with radical antielection movements—” She can’t waste her breath on this; she’s about to run up who knows how many flights of stairs. “Just look him up. And don’t lose him!”

  Another whoosh. Mishima glances over her shoulder long enough to see the flames shooting off another rooftop but doesn’t pause to decipher the words. “Jorge?”

  “I’m on it.” Her interpreter gives her the words in Japanese but keeps Jorge’s deep, calming tone. “We’ve got plenty of people here. We’re covered.”

  “Not covered enough,” Mishima mutters.

  The Avenida del Libertador that runs between the park and the adjoining ForzaItalia centenal has been closed off to ground vehicles for the rally, and Mishima skids across it without slowing. She’s already pinpointed the apartment building, a pale façade latticed with minimal rectangular balconies, awnings fluttering over them in the faint breeze. She pulls the blueprints as she barrels into the lobby, projects them at eyeball level, and heads straight for the door marked EMERGENCY EXIT.

  The stairwell is cool after the heat of the crowds and lit only by an illuminated banister zigzagging up into the dimness. Mishima dumps her crowdcutter at the bottom—it won’t refold and doesn’t provide much protection—and starts up the first flight.

  WP stands for
William Pressman, the nominal head of the Heritage government. He’s not a dictator, even though Heritage has held the Supermajority since the election system started. Every second, as she pounds up and up, those letters are there, burning for all to see, being recorded and sent around the world. Even though the truth or at least all the relevant Information is easily available, every second the words are up there sows more doubt and confusion. She can still hear the music from the rally; the alt-tango has given way to a fast-paced kora–steel drum duet, which only ratchets up the tension. Why couldn’t the organizers have stuck with some rousing but low-tempo trova? Breathing heavily but still moving fast, Mishima risks a glance out a window on what is either the fifth or the sixth floor. The fire phrase on the other building shines clearly now: H=CHILABOR, a reference to a Heritage sweatshop scandal from a couple of years ago. Mostly false. That one is going to require a long and complicated rebuttal.

  Mishima pauses at the top of the stairwell to steady her breath and draw her stiletto. There is a steady thrumming from the other side, through which she can make out the occasional crackle of flame. She doubts she’ll find anyone on the roof: any half-decent plan would have the perpetrators far away by now. But the first rule of security is Don’t be stupid. Mishima pushes the roof-access door open hard, keeping her body angled away, and checks the whole roof before settling down to examine the mechanism that’s keeping those letters roaring two dozen feet above her head. It’s a simple enough system: letter-shaped frames around the wicks, and a pump sending accelerant—kerosene, from the smell of it—from a barrel next to the access door. Mishima wants to slash the line, but spilling flammable liquid all over this roof is not worth even a few seconds’ gain, so she settles for turning off the pump.

  The fire-writing gutters and, letter by letter, blinks out, leaving the roof in retina-stinging darkness. Mishima darts back inside the stairwell to grab a fire extinguisher she saw a few floors down. By the time she gets back to the roof, the letters have blackened and shriveled, and are sinking slowly down. She douses the wicks as they land. Two security officers from Jorge’s team show up while she’s doing so, with their own portable extinguishers.

  As they finish spraying, the nitrogen haze around them turns ruddy, and Mishima looks up to see the glow of a projection. Rubbing at the patina of sweat across her face, she walks to the parapet and twists around to see the rebuttal. Mariana followed the instructions: the letters look to be about the same size, and she’s even added a sort of shimmery cast that approximates fire. But they are utterly lacking in menace and go on for a paragraph and a half, stretching far along the avenida and referencing, as far as she can tell from this angle, the official Academia Española definition of dictador.

  She turns and looks out across the park in time to see the o and the r from the ChiLabor message wink out. A faint sigh comes up from the crowd: the excitement is over. The kora and steel drum duo—Mishima can see the stage from here—launch into another piece, this one more of a ballad. The projection detailing the accusations and counteraccusations related to the labor misconduct from two years ago appears at the other end of the park, but nobody is watching anymore.

  “Jorge?” Mishima mutters. “Did we get anyone?”

  “Negative.”

  “Georgina?”

  “That guy hasn’t moved. He’s standing right where you left him. Seemed to enjoy the show, though.”

  * * *

  Domaine has indeed enjoyed himself, alternating his gaze between the flaming subversion of Information and the pantomime of excited consternation, urgent documentation, and rapid, vapid commentary in the faces around him. He stayed put in part out of hope that Mishima would come back to finish their conversation, and his eyes scan and rescan the laughing, talking, drinking, smoking, swaying Buenos Aires elite for her figure, although he realizes it’s a diminishing possibility. Finally, he swings around toward the group he was talking to when Mishima arrived. Voter girl gave up on him some time ago and has gone back to talking with her friends, glossy lips in unstopping motion, perfectly content to be part of this newsworthy, useless event.

  “They’re using you!” Domaine hisses, leaning in close to her, then sweeping his wide eyes around the circle of expertly made-up faces. “All of you!”

  CHAPTER 2

  Although he has twenty-three centenals scheduled for a South and Southeast Asia swing over the next five days, Ken mostly expects to get yanked into a meeting about what he learned from Amuru. No message comes during the night, and despite his fondness for certain familiar parts of the upcoming trip (the foot massage in the Singapore airport; a certain bar in Kemang; a thosai spot he’s fond of in Chennai), he is grumpy as he sets out. It doesn’t help that he has to fly cargo class. Even the thought of the equatorial warmth can’t soothe him.

  It’s still dark when he drops off his rented mini-motor and checks in at the airport. His Information presets had very little to tell him during his rural detour, except the occasional comment about the type of tree sliding by or when the road was constructed, and the rush of exposition in the airport comes as a shock, especially on such little sleep. Ken quickly learns, and completely fails to absorb, a great deal about the politicking involved in the airport’s initial construction and the decision on its location, as well as which airlines serve it and since when and to which connections, and its place in various ranking schemes (official associations, user-generated, statistically based), while bypassing reams on the sourcing of materials, the architecture firm, and the history of the land below it. Along the way, ads—flat and projected, still and animated—crowd his vision, all of them translated and most of them annotated by his Information: he learns that the company trying to sell him whiskey is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola (not surprising, since they are part of the corporate government that owns this airport) and sees the annual statement summary for a firm offering wealth management. Not having any wealth to speak of, he ignores both the ad and the background Information discrediting it.

  As he walks past the large windows looking out on the runways, Information projects a split-screen view with old-school vids of exactly the same scene taken during the flooding of the 2011 tsunami. Because his tastes tend toward the political and cultural rather than the nutritional or ecological, during his brief lap through the gift shop his Information explains the projections of cows making rude faces at him with a discourse on the importance of beef tongue as a delicacy in the Sendai area. His gaze rests momentarily on an unidentifiable stuffed animal, a sort of curved triangle with bulging eyes and an unlikely smile, and he learns about shark hunting, long illegal but, his Information suggests, still practiced in some of the surrounding towns; the fluffy souvenir represents the fin.

  He heads to one of the cafés and orders a concoction of caffeine, sugar, and artificial flavoring—Ken has blocked his handheld from giving him dietary breakdowns on anything he’s ingesting, as long as it’s not outright poisonous—from the superfluous, bright-eyed attendant. The attendant has allowed some of her Information to be public, and so while he waits for his beverage, Ken sees projected next to her cheerful face the high school she went to (Sendai Shougyou) and her favorite cartoon character (Hello Kitty in a frog suit). He takes the silicon mug to the gate, its animated map showing the recycling bin closest to his current location auto-updating as he moves. He glances at the polls, then watches the deicing going on outside the window (he has also forbidden his feeds from giving him any data about the age or airworthiness of the planes he’s about to board) while he tries to talk himself out of his funk.

  It’s normal that they might not want to include him on strategy discussions, even if those discussions are based on his intel. He’s young, after all, and has shot up the ranks at Policy1st fast, and via an unlikely path. Ken is reminding himself that he’s in it for the right reasons, for the policy, not for the excitement, when Suzuki Todry sits down next to him, a similar silicon mug in hand.

  “Interesting stuff,” Suzuki says.<
br />
  “Surprising,” Ken ventures, trying to keep his tone as neutral as his mentor’s.

  Suzuki shrugs. “Not necessarily.”

  “Threatening war?” There’s no one within three meters of them, but Ken keeps his voice down anyway.

  “It might be just that,” Suzuki says amiably. “A threat. Posturing. Remember, if this statement hasn’t been recorded, not only can we not attack them for it before the election, but no one can hold them to it if they do win. Maybe they’re betting that they can win Okinawa this way, but not the Supermajority, so they won’t have to make good on the promise.”

  “Liberty’s trying to go all the way,” Ken says.

  “But it’s not at all sure they will.”

  “Either way. This is extreme. This is exactly what the system was created to prevent.”

  Suzuki nods. “We have people in Okinawa trying to get vid of this promise. We’re also thinking of running an ad or two ourselves.” He holds out his screen. “What do you think?”

  The soundtrack goes straight into Ken’s ear amplifiers, and he sets the projection to play in stereo at the closest possible points to his eyes, tiny and two-dimensional so no one else can watch, although his brain stitches together a full-sized, full-depth result.

  It’s your standard election ad, inspiring music over scenes of happy, sunlit, productive people of different races, interspersed with graphics that suggest, without ever showing the full picture, prediction maps of a Policy1st landslide. The narrative is in Okinawan, but there are subtitles in English, Japanese, and Chinese for people who don’t have translators.

  Twenty years ago, the people of the world came together in an unprecedented step to form a new international order. Since the first global election, war among participating jurisdictions has been eradicated, and prosperity and trade have spread.