Agency

19 Images of the Aftermath

When she guessed they’d gone two blocks, Verity sat up, bumping into a perfumed car tag she’d been smelling. At least he wasn’t wearing it. “What flavor’s this?” she asked.

“Champagne,” he said, “and bergamot.”

She didn’t feel like celebrating. Then they were under the bridge, always a weird feeling. As they emerged, he touched the dashboard media package. “—grievous act of terrorism,” the president said. “An entire busload of Turkish cadets, thirty in all, killed in an attack employing synchronized IEDs. We’ve all seen the images of the aftermath.” Verity herself, with considerable effort, had so far managed not to. “In retaliation, Turkey’s army shelled Kurdish locations along the border.”

“You called for an immediate ceasefire,” someone said, female, younger, British.

“Our intelligence community hasn’t determined responsibility,” the president said. “But when the YPG retaliated in turn, for civilian deaths in Qamishli, the response was an arguably disproportionate Turkish rocket attack, and we were well on our way to where we are today.” Sevrin touched the dash again, turning the radio off. “Old,” he said, disappointed, “last week.”

What the actual fucking fuck? Those were T-122 Sakaryas. Turkish MRLS. You know about this?

Verity nodded slightly, knowing Eunice would see the movement in the feed from the glasses.

And the Russians? Got their plane shot down and they’re threatening to use nukes? And we’re doing whatever the fuck it is we’re doing, you and me and whoever the hell else, in the middle?

“You’d kind of taken my mind off it,” Verity said, forgetting Sevrin. “Sorry,” she said to him, “phone.”

“No problem,” he said.

The fucking world could end, right now.

“That’s what everybody’s saying.”

I’m not everybody. I just found out I know mega-shitloads about the region. Some kind of serious area of specialization.

“That’s as sweary as I’ve heard an AI be,” Verity said, her gaze then meeting Sevrin’s in a mutual side-eye.

And with good fucking reason.

A feed opened, on Joe-Eddy’s living room. Someone at the workbench, not Joe-Eddy, his back to the camera, was surveying the hobby rubble.