Null States Page 5

  Which reminds her of Veena Rasmussen. The lesser of the Mighty Vs has been pushing, loudly and insistently, for system-wide minimum environmental standards for all governments. Nougaz has explained to her, first through lower-level intermediaries and recently, repeatedly, in person, that micro-democracy exists precisely to allow for variation in how governments decide to address the substantial challenges of the late twenty-first century. Through elections and relatively free immigration policies, people vote in this marketplace of ideas and innovation.

  “Leading to a race to the bottom,” Veena always replies. “You already have minimum requirements for human rights. Why shouldn’t you protect the environment that protects us all? These standards—not even requirements, standards—would be based on current practices, to prevent backsliding. They wouldn’t necessitate action for compliance by any government.” As if that were doing them a favor. She seems to think winning the Supermajority gives her government the right, the ability, maybe even the responsibility because that’s just the kind of savior complex she has, to push its agenda for changes in the system, and she’s unfortunately sharp at manipulating the news compilers. A pain in the ass.

  Vera gets it, Nougaz is sure, but she seems unwilling or unable to control Veena. Nougaz hasn’t wanted to probe into that partnership beyond what’s available on public Information. It is important to draw a line in relationships, leave the other some privacy, especially in the early days.

  She finds she is smiling, thinking of Vera, and she shifts her attention to other irritations: Heritage, with their stupid squirming to get out of the richly deserved punishments for their crimes; PhilipMorris, pushing hard for the mantle tunnel approvals; 1China, with its deliberate provocations against nation-states along the frontiers of the micro-democracy system. There are growing suspicions about 1China’s cozy relationship with China, the nation-state remnant of the PRC; Nougaz flips through the virtual pages of a report that appeared in her workstation just that morning on secret arms trading between the two.

  The problem with Vera (as her attention drifts from the repetitive acronyms describing explosive materials and rocket launchers) is the shift to a five-year election cycle. Vera is adamantly against it, and from the perspective of her position she’s completely correct. Policy1st needs more time to consolidate, figure out what they’re doing, and produce visible successes if they’re going to have any chance of retaining the Supermajority. But another five years could just as easily allow them to burrow deeper into a tangled mess, and Nougaz feels that they can’t afford the risk. Besides, ten years is too long, regardless of who’s in power. Voters lose interest, growing either complacent or frustrated. It lets incumbents get entrenched. Even those within Information who believe the bulk of power should rest with the governments are coming around to the idea. Nougaz can’t consider that faction without a sniff. Buying into the fantasy that Information is a neutral, transparent facilitator is so naïve.

  No, it will have to happen, sooner rather than later. It’s true, it’s unfair to Policy1st, but the system is larger than just one government.

  * * *

  Amran has high expectations for her own predictive ability. “No, no, nothing about assassination. Nothing about assassins. No, I haven’t heard anything about anyone being particularly angry with the governor,” she insists, still tearful. Roz and Malakal couldn’t get anything coherent out of her until they started asking very specific questions.

  “What, then?” asks Malakal, and Roz follows up quickly. “What did you hear?”

  “Not … hear really, but there have been so many dramatic incidents lately.” Amran looks up at them with big, pleading eyes. “I knew … I just knew it was leading up to something. But I wasn’t sure whether it was over or if there would be something bigger…”

  “Go on,” Roz says, a suspicion growing.

  A month ago, Amran tells them, there was a loud explosion in the town. “People went running, the smoke was dark and thick as the tree in front of the compound. It was a barrel of oil from the fuel merchant’s stall in the market.”

  “They keep their oil in barrels here? In the market?” Roz can’t believe it.

  “It’s not like someone can pick up a barrel and walk away with it,” Malakal tells her. “They don’t have the resources to dig underground tanks.”

  “No one was hurt that time,” Amran continues. “But then, two weeks later, someone tossed an explosive at a truck coming from El-Geneina and blew it off the road. Then there was a haboob that blocked flights in for a day and a half.” Dust storms are common here, but that, Amran tells them with a defensive note in her voice, was the longest anyone can remember. “Except maybe the oldest people.” She looks down at her hands again. Doubtless, it sounds silly to her when she says it all out loud.

  Roz wonders if Amran has ever been diagnosed. Or maybe she’s trying to work up a narrative disorder that she doesn’t actually have—that seems to have become fashionable lately. Either way, she could probably use some specialist help.

  “You believe these were … portents?” Malakal asks, his voice even deeper than usual, although Roz can’t be sure whether it’s from skepticism or unease.

  “No, not … the way you mean. It just seemed to be … The tension was growing more and more … like something else had to happen.”

  “You couldn’t have been expected to know exactly what was coming next,” Roz says, hoping she sounds supportive. She hates having to baby a colleague, but Amran is not SVAT. Whoever assigned her here probably thought this was the perfect backwater for someone to learn the ropes quietly. They must not have seen the signs of a narrative disorder, or of the desire for one.

  Roz isn’t sure if Malakal has come to the same conclusion, although he glances at her with something meaningful in his expression before he turns back to Amran. “Can you write up those incidents?” The gentleness in his voice makes Roz think he’s leaning toward mentally unstable rather than wannabe intuitive genius. She wonders if she can convince him to replace Amran but resigns herself to the fact that that idea is both unlikely and an overreaction.

  * * *

  They are halfway to Djabal, skimming over the scrubland and sands of West Darfur, when Maryam pings Roz. As soon as Roz is sure it’s not a personal call, she puts Maryam on projection.

  “Hi,” she says. “I’ve got the report on the tsubame, are you ready?”

  “As long as you keep in mind we’re in a crow right now,” Malakal answers. “Don’t make it too gruesome.” He grins at Roz, who didn’t think it was a joke.

  Maryam doesn’t think so either. “You might want to walk after you hear this.” She sends through her projection, and it auto-displays between them, a three-dimensional image of a tsubame hovering in front of the desert landscape speeding by on their monitor. The angle of view swings around to show it from all angles: a standard two-seater hovercraft, outfitted with those white drapes to give it a bit of drama and status but otherwise little changed from the factory model, either in hardware or software. “Which suggests,” Maryam says, pointing that out, “that neither the governor nor his staff are very familiar with tsubame or crow mechanics.”

  “I would be surprised if they were,” Malakal comments. “They’re not used very often out here, even though they’re well-suited to the terrain—mostly, that is,” he adds as their own crow shifts up steeply to climb over one of the low, stony hill ranges common in this part of the territory.

  Maryam’s projection simulates the crash, then zooms in on the constituent pieces left scattered in the sand afterward. “No sign of any explosive trigger or other foreign material,” she says. “Unless they—whoever it was—designed something that would disintegrate entirely.”

  “Couldn’t they have packed the explosives someplace where the tsubame would trigger them itself, through its normal processes? It wouldn’t take a very large amount of explosive to blow that thing,” Roz says.

  “It occurred to us,” Maryam answers, �
�but there’s the problem of the timing. It was close to landing when it exploded, no? A few minutes longer and they would have been out of danger. A bit risky. Still possible, but we found something much more compelling.”

  The projection shifts to zoom down lines of code: the tsubame’s operating system log. Maryam slows it, searching, and stops. “Here!” From her office in Doha, she highlights a few lines.

  “A remote command?” Roz asks. “That shouldn’t be possible with the standard package.” For security reasons, there are strict regulations around remote aircraft. Permits are required to remove manufacturer safeguards, and while it’s possible to hack it without going through that step, it’s nontrivial. People who do set up illicit remote control on their own vehicle put high security controls on it themselves to prevent others from taking over from outside.

  “And yet there it is,” Maryam says.

  Roz is reminded, with a shiver, of something else, something unnerving, something that made her feel this same kind of uncomfortable recently. Then she has it: the gleam of a gun, possibly metal, possibly plastic, in the Kas market. Relieved, she dismisses the thought as unrelated and focuses back in on Maryam.

  “The remote command triggered the explosion by creating an interaction between the power cycle and the air pressurizers.” The projection sprouts tubes and cylinders, the inner hardware of the aircraft.

  “Have you traced the remote command?” Roz asks.

  “We’re working on it, but we’re having trouble finding the source.”

  “Having trouble finding it?” Malakal asks.

  “It doesn’t seem to appear in Information, which means the signal’s been masked, or bounced—made to look as though it’s a command between two other points or made invisible in the records. Not an easy thing to do. We’ll find it eventually, but it will take some time and it may not be very helpful.”

  “Is there any chance the remote command was via line-of-sight?” Roz puts in.

  Maryam frowns. “If it was, that should have shown up in the logs. I suppose it’s theoretically possible a line-of-sight command could be masked, but I’ve never heard of that happening. I’ll look into it; thanks for the suggestion. Something else, though: whoever did this would have had to override the software failsafes. No big deal compared to initiating remote control. The thing is, there should have been a hardware failsafe as well.” The three-dimensional blueprints zoom in on a small valve blocking the junction between two pipes.

  “There was someone on the ground,” Malakal says.

  “Someone had to physically make the adjustment. Not terribly difficult; with the right instructions, any half-decent mechanic could have done it. And it could have been done at almost any time, because without the remote command, the removal of that valve would only lead to an explosion under very specific, very unlikely conditions. We might even consider it a factory error, if we didn’t have full interior diagnostics from both the factory and the dealer. The change happened after this tsubame was bought, which fortunately was only six months ago.”

  Roz shakes her head. Six months full of time during which the tsubame was frequently moored and unwatched. “Naturally, you have the tsubame logs,” she says drily.

  “Naturally,” Maryam said. “And we do have people here taking a look at them—al-Derbi put some of his staff on it. But I’ll send our compilation and cross-referencing to you too if you want to take a look.”

  “Sure.” Roz is notoriously good at data analysis; the more data the better. That doesn’t mean she likes it, though. “Something else, too…” She hesitates, glancing sidelong at Malakal. “Could you send me the complete files for the full SVAT team? Just in case.”

  Maryam, a good friend, doesn’t blink. “Sure, I’ll get those to you. In the meantime, just in case, I’ve developed a patch for you and for DarFur’s remaining tsubames.” She uploads a bit of software to the crow. “That’s designed to auto-shutdown at any remote control attempt. It should take you down to a soft landing before rebooting.”

  “‘Should’?” Roz asks.

  “I take it this hasn’t been tested?” Malakal says.

  “Not physically tested, no,” Maryam answers. “But you’ve got my personal debugging and design test guarantee.” She sounds snappy with confidence, the closest to pre-breakup Maryam that Roz has heard in months.

  “In that case,” Malakal responds soberly, “I suggest you consider a global distribution.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Charles spends some time with Amran after the meeting. Yes, he could look up the friction with neighbors on Information, but he’d rather get as close to the source as he can. Besides, it’s clear that Information here is not up to its usual standard. That’s fine. Charles has worked in such data-straitened places before. It takes a little more legwork, but that keeps one on one’s toes. As for Amran, she’s flighty and inexperienced, but she means well. And she’s not entirely clueless. Once he has calmed her down by ignoring all her sighs and dire hints (really ignoring, not just pretending; he couldn’t repeat a single one of them if asked), she’s able to give him a decent rundown of local inter-centenal politics.

  “Even though this government is called DarFur—house of the Fur—Al-Jabali took pains to ensure it isn’t a nationalist government. There are plenty of citizens who are not Fur tribe.”

  “But wasn’t part of Al-Jabali’s vision the growth of the Fur nation?”

  “Originally, it was. But he was smart,” Amran says earnestly. “He saw what Information values: diversity, transparency. Citizenship based on something other than blood. He came from a different world, yes. He had been persecuted all his life, as had his parents and grandparents, for being Fur, and nothing makes nationalists so fast as persecution.” Straight out of the Information handbook. “But he was the kind of politician who could merge different viewpoints into something new and exciting. More recently”—she starts searching for vid clips of speeches and throwing them to Charles—“he’d been talking about unity, about the project of a great nation, the nation of all oppressed people, not only the Fur…” Amran trails off, twisting her hands. “It still wasn’t clear if he would be able to refine and transmit this vision, but it was interesting to watch.”

  “A great loss,” Charles says, putting some warmth in his voice so that it resonates with Amran, but she doesn’t look up. “And the surrounding governments?”

  Amran nods. “JusticeEquality are hardliners. They’re mostly ex-guerrilla, as you know, but I don’t think they had realized how Al-Jabali was shifting. During the election, DarFur and JusticeEquality were fierce political rivals, but since the centenals were settled, they have been at least pretending to work together. DarMasalit … well, they would like to be doing the same as DarFur, strengthening their culture and growing into a political force, but there are far fewer of them: only seven centenals. But there’s not much overlap, so while there is rivalry, it’s not very strong.”

  “And the non-locals?” Charles asks.

  “888 are very serious,” Amran says. “I wasn’t here during the election, but I heard they commissioned all kinds of pop-up advids and things that people here aren’t very accustomed to. Even now, people are very aware of them, because there is constant trade between Kas and their centenal in Nyala. People go there for shopping when they can. 888 would like to have won DarFur’s centenals.”

  “I’m sure they would,” Charles agrees. “But why would they risk being sanctioned for an assassination for only thirty centenals?”

  “That’s thirty centenals closer to the Supermajority, no?”

  Charles mutters something and his Information throws up a quick projection visualizing the top five governments in the world. “888 is nearly a thousand centenals away from the Supermajority.”

  “But Policy1st is likely to lose ground,” Amran argues. “The way they’re going?”

  Charles decides to drop the cost-benefit argument. “How exactly would assassinating the head of state here help 88
8 to win this centenal in eight years?”

  “Polling has shown that Al-Jabali’s personality was very important in helping DarFur to win,” Amran offers, but even she doesn’t seem convinced. “Maybe they just hated him?” She looks down, twisting her hands again. “I heard … I don’t know if this is true, but some of the government officials believe that 888 called in the SVAT visit.”

  Charles doesn’t answer. He is too busy looking for evidence one way or the other. He doesn’t find anything immediately, although he does hope that if that were the case, Minzhe wouldn’t have been among those deployed.

  * * *

  Djabal is flanked with long columns of multistory apartment buildings in Chinese-style clusters of identical construction. Five white nine-story buildings; eight off-white twelve-story buildings; six desert-red eighteen-story buildings. Watching them glide past in depressing anonymity, Roz is reminded that DarFur only barely beat out 888 here, and that was only because 1China split the Han vote, coming in a not-so-distant third. It wasn’t only the Chinese migrants voting for them either: a lot of the Fur who had been living in this camp for decades thought that a large foreign government had more of a future than one based on their own traditions. Roz wonders if that’s why Al-Jabali decided to make his base in Kas, where there are still relatively few foreigners and DarFur won by a substantial margin.

  Given the lack of appealing options for lodging, they decide to sleep in the crow. They moor it in a public lot near the market area and walk out to find some food. As uniform and blocky as the outskirts of town are, the market is low and patchy, preserving the feel of the refugee economic nexus that it originally was. Information’s map shows Roz that Djabal proper is not very big, but faint overlays trace the common circuits extending out from the town in vast arcs, merchant routes linking the continent from Khartoum in one direction to Kano in the other.