Islands in the Net

11

She lost the journalists at the Galveston airport. She was getting pretty good at it by now. They weren't as eager as they'd been at first and they knew they could pick her up again soon.

"Welcome to Fun City," the van told her. "Alfred A.

Magruder, Mayor. Please announce your destination clearly into the microphone. Anunce Usted-"

"Rizome Lodge."

She turned on the radio, caught the last half of a new pop song. "Rubble Bounces in Bamako." Harsh, jittery, banging music. Strange how quickly that had come back into style.

Weirdness, edginess, war nerves.

The city hadn't changed much. They didn't let it change much. Same grand old buildings, same palm trees, same crowds of Houstonians, thinned out by a December cold front.

The Church of Ishtar was advertising openly now. They were almost respectable, flourishing anyway, in a time of war and whores. Carlotta had been right about that. She thought about Carlotta, lost somewhere in her holy demimonde, smil- ing her sunny, drugged smile and batting her eyes at some client. Maybe their paths would cross again, somewhere some- how sometime, but Laura doubted it. The world was full of

Carlottas, full of women whose lives were not their own. She didn't even know Carlotta's real name.

Storm surf was up, backwash from a tropical depression, broken up on, the Texas coast in a ragged, cloudy array.

Determined surfers were out in their transparent wetsuits.

More than half the surfers had black skin.

She spotted the flagpole first. The Texas flag, the Rizome emblem. The sight of it hit her very hard. Memory, wonder, sorrow. Bitterness.

The journos were waiting just outside the Rizome property line. They had cunningly managed to stick a bus in her way.

Laura's van stopped short. The hat and sunglasses wouldn't help her now. She climbed out.

They surrounded her. Keeping ten feet away, like the privacy laws demanded. A very small blessing. "Mrs. Web- ster, Mrs. Webster!" Then one voice amid the chorus. "Ms. Day!"

Laura stopped short. "What."

Red-haired guy, freckles. Cocky expression. "Any word on your impending divorce action, Ms. Day?"

She looked them over. Eyes, cameras. "I know people who could eat the lot of you for breakfast."

"Thanks, thanks, that's great, Ms. Day ..."

She crossed the beach. Up the old familiar stairs to the walkway. The stair rails had aged nicely, with the silken look of driftwood, and the striped awning was new. It looked like a good place, the Lodge, with its cheerful arches and sand- castle tower with the deep, round windows and the flags.

Innocent fun, sunbathing and lemonade, a wonderful place for a kid.

She stepped into the bar, let the door shut itself behind her.

Dim inside-the bar was full of strangers. Earth-cooled air, the smell of wine coolers and tortilla chips. Tables and wicker chairs. A man looked up at her-one of David's wrecking crew, she thought, not Rizome, but they'd always liked hang- ing out here-she had forgotten his name. He hesitated, recognizing her but not sure.

She ghosted past him. One of Mrs. Delrosario's girls passed her with a pitcher of beer. The girl stopped, turned on her heel. "Laura. It's you?"

"Hello, Inez."

They couldn't hug-Inez was carrying the beer. Laura kissed her cheek. "You're all grown up, Inez.... You can serve that stuff now?"

"I'm eighteen, I can serve it, I can't drink it."

"Well it won't be long now, will it?"

"I guess not...." She was wearing an engagement ring.

"My abuela will be glad to see you-I'm glad too."

Laura nodded toward the crowd from behind her sun- glasses. "Don't tell them I'm here-everyone makes such a big deal of it."

"Okay, Laura." Inez was embarrassed. People got that way when you were a global celebrity. Tongue-tied and worshipful-this, from little Inez, who used to see her chang- ing diapers and knocking around in her bathing suit. "I'll see you later huh?"

"Sure." Laura ducked behind the bar, went through the kitchen. No sign of Mrs. Delrosario, but the smell of her cooking was there, a rush of memory. She walked past copper-bottomed pans and griddles, into the dining room.

Rizome guests talking politics-you could tell it by the strained looks on their faces, the aggression.

It wasn't just the fear. The world had changed. They had eaten up the Islands and it had settled in their belly like a drug. That Island strangeness was everywhere now, diluted, muted, and tingly... .

She couldn't face them, not yet. She went up the tower stair,--the door wouldn't open for her. She almost walked into it headlong. Codes must have changed-no, she was wearing a new watchphone, not programmed for the Lodge.

She touched it. "David?"

"Laura," he said. "You at the airport?"

"No. I'm right here at the top of the stairs."

Silence. Through the door, across the few feet that still separated them, she could feel him, bracing himself. "Come on in...."

"It's the door, I can't get it open."

"Oh! Yeah, okay, I can get it." It shunted. She put her sunglasses away.

She came up through the floor and threw the hat onto a table, into a round column of sunlight from a tower window.

All the furniture was different. David rose from his favorite console-but no, it wasn't his, not anymore.

A Worldrun game was on. Africa was a mess. He came to greet her-a tall, gaunt black man, with short hair and read- ing glasses. They gripped each other's hands for a moment.

Then hugged hard, saying nothing. He'd lost weight-she could feel the bones in him;

She pulled back. "You look good."

"So do you." Lies. He took off the glasses and put them in his shirt pocket. "I don't really need these."

She wondered when she was going to cry. She could feel the need for it coming on. She sat down on a couch. He sat on a chair across the new coffee table.

"The place looks good, David. Really good."

"Webster and Webster, we build to last."

That did it. She began crying, hard. He fetched her some tissue and joined her on the couch and put his arm over her shoulders. She let him do it.

"The first weeks," he said, "about the first six months, I dreamed about this meeting. Laura, I couldn't believe you were dead. I thought, in jail somewhere. Singapore. She's a political, I told people, somebody's holding her, they'll let her go when things straighten out. Then they started talking about your being on the Ali Khamenei, and I knew that was it. That they'd finally gotten you, that they'd killed my wife.

And I'd been half the world away. And hadn't helped." He put his thumbs into the corners of his eyes. "I'd wake up at night and think of you drowning."

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "It wasn't our fault, was it? What we had was good, it was really going to last, to last forever. "

"I .really loved you," he said. "When I lost you, it just destroyed me."

"I want you to know, David-I don't blame you for not waiting." Long silence. "I wouldn't have waited either, not if it was like that. What you and Emily did, it was right for you, both of you."

He stared at her, his eyes bloodshot. Her gesture, her forgiveness, had humiliated him. "There's just no end to what you're willing to sacrifice, is there?"

"Don't blame me!" she said. "I didn't sacrifice anything,

I didn't want this to happen to us! It was stolen from us-they stole our life.

"We didn't have to do it. We chose to do it. We could have left the company, run off somewhere, just been happy."

He was shaking. "I would have been happy-I didn't need anything but you."

"We can't help it if we have to live in the world! We had bad luck. Bad luck happens. We stumbled over something buried, and it tore us up. " No answer. "David, at least we're alive. "

He gave a sharp bark of laughter. "Hell, you're more than alive, Laura. You're goddamn famous. The whole world knows. It's a fucking scandal, a soap opera. We don't 'live in the world'-the world lives in us now. We went out to fight for the Net and the Net just stretched us to pieces. Not our fault-oh hell no! All the fucking money and politics and multinationals just grabbed us and pulled us apart!"

He slammed his knee with his fist. "Even if Emily hadn't come in-and I don't love Emily, Laura, not like I loved you-how the hell could we have ever gone back to a real human life? Our little marriage, our little baby, our little house?"

He laughed, a high-pitched unhappy sound. "Back when I was a widower, there was a lot of rage and pain in that, but

Rizome tried to take care of me, they thought it was ... dra- matic. I still hated their guts for what they led us into, but I thought, Loretta needs me, Emily cares, maybe I can make a go of it. Go on living."

He was as taut as strung wire. "But I'm just a little person, a private person. I'm not Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, I'm not

God. I just wanted my wife and my baby and my work, and a few pals to drink beer with, and a nice place to live."

"Well they wouldn't let us have that. But at least we made them pay for what they did."

"You made them pay."

"I was fighting for us!"

"Yeah, and you won the battle-but for the Net, not for you and me." He knotted his hands. "I know it's a selfish thing. I feel ashamed sometimes, worthless. Those little bas- tards out in their submarine, they're still out there with their four precious home-made A-bombs, and if they fire one, it's gonna vaporize a million people just like us. They're evil, they have to be fought. So what do you and I matter, right?

But I can't see on that scale, I'm small, I can only see you and me."

She touched his hands. "David, we still have Loretta.

We're not strangers. I was your wife, I'm the mother of your child. I didn't want to be what I've become. now. If I'd had a choice I'd have chosen you:"

He wiped his eyes. He was fighting the feelings back, becoming distant. Polite. "Well, we'll see each other some- times, won't we? Holidays-that sort of thing. Even though

I'm in Mexico now, and you're still in the company."

"I always liked Mexico."

"You can come down and see what we're working on. The

Yucatan project .. some of those guys from Grenada ... their ideas weren't all bad. "

"We'll be good friends. When the hurt passes. We don't hate each other-we didn't mean to hurt each other. It only hurts this bad because it was so good when we had it."

"It was good, wasn't it? Back when we had each other.

When we were still the same size." He looked at her through his tear-streaked dark face. Suddenly she could see the David she had lost in there, somewhere. He was like a little boy.

They had a reception for her downstairs. It was like the other receptions in her honor, in Azania, in Atlanta, though the room was full of people she had loved. They had made her a cake. She cut it, and everyone sang. No journalists, thank God. A Rizome gathering.

She gave them a little speech that she'd written for them on the plane, coming in. About the Lodge-how the enemy had killed a guest, insulted their house and their company. About how they had fought back, not with machine guns, but with truth and solidarity. They had paid a price for resistance, in trouble and tragedy.

But today the Malian conspiracy was exposed and in utter wreckage. The Grenadian regime was wiped out. The

Singaporeans had had a revolution. Even the European data bankers-Los Morfinos-had lost their safe havens and were scattered to the winds. (Applause.)

Even Vienna had been shattered in the world upheaval, but

Rizome was stronger than ever. They had proven their right to the future. They-the Lodge personnel-could be proud of their role in global history.

Everyone applauded. They were shiny-eyed. She was get- ting much better at this sort of thing. She had done it so many times that all the fear was gone.

The formality broke up and people began circulating. Mrs.

Delrosario, Mrs. Rodriguez, were both in tears. Laura con- soled them. She was introduced to the Lodge's new coordina- tor and his pregnant wife. They bubbled on about how nice the place was and how much they were sure they'd enjoy it.

Laura did her "humble Laura" number, patient, detached.

People always seemed surprised to see her speak reason- ably, without hair-tearing or hysteria. They had all formed their first judgment of her from watching Gresham's tape.

She had seen the tape (one of the innumerable pirated copies)

exactly once, and had turned it off before the end, unable to bear the intensity. She knew what other people thought about it, though-she had read the commentaries. Her mother had sent her a little scrapbook of them, carefully clipped from the world press.

She would think about those comments sometimes when she was introduced to strangers, saw them judging her. Judg- ing ' her, presumably, by the kind of crap they'd seen and read. "Mrs. Webster was thoroughly convincing, showing all the naive rage of an offended bourgeoise" Leningrad Free

Press. "She recited her grievances to the camera like a cavalier's mistress demanding vengeance for an insult"-Paris-

Despatch. "Ugly, histrionic, gratingly insistent, a testament that was ultimately far too unpleasant to be disbelieved"-

The Guardian. She had read that last one ten or twelve times, and had even considered calling up the snide little creep who'd written it-but what the hell. The tape had worked, that was enough. And . it was nothing compared to what they said about the poor wretched bastards who used to run Vienna.

All that was old news now, anyway. Nowadays everybody talked about the submarine. Everyone was an expert. It was not, of course, an American Trident submarine-FACT had lied to her about that, small surprise there. She had told the whole world that she'd been on a "Trident" submarine, when a Trident was actually a kind of missile.

But Gresham had asked her for a description and the description had made it clear. The boat was a former Soviet

Alfa-class missile sub, which had been sold years ago, to the

African nation of Djibouti, and reported sunk with all hands.

Of course it had not sunk at all-the hapless crew had been gassed by FACT saboteurs onboard as mercenaries, and the whole sub captured intact.

Almost the whole story was out now, new bits and pieces coming in every day. They had the FACT computer files, captured in Bamako. FACT agents overseas were surrender- ing right and left, naming their associates, ruining their for- mer employers in a septic orgy of confession.

The Countess herself was dead. She had shot herself in her bunker at Bamako and had her remains cremated, leaving a long, rambling, lunatic testament about her vindication by history. So they claimed, anyway. No genuine proof of her death. She'd seen to that.

They still weren't even sure of the woman's true identity.

There were at least five solid candidates. wealthy right-wing women who had vanished at one point or another into the underworld of data piracy and global spookdom. That didn't even count the hundreds of goofy folk tales and bullshit conspiracy theories.

The weird, sick thing was that people liked it. They liked the idea of an evil countess and her minions, even though the testimony and confessions were showing how squalid it was..

The woman had been mentally ill. Old and trembling and out of it, and surrounded by people. who were part zealot and part profiteer.

But people couldn't see it like that-they couldn't grasp the genuine banality of corruption. On some deep unconscious level people liked the political upheaval, the insecurity, the perverse tang of nuclear terror. The fear was an aphrodisiac, a chance to chuck the longterm view and live for the moment.

Once it had always been like that. Now that she was living it, hearing people talk it, she knew.

Someone had invited the mayor. Magruder began explain- ing to her the complex legal niceties of reopening the Lodge.

He was defensive about what he'd done, in his own aggres- sive way. She fended him off with empty pleasantries. "Oh, wait," she said, "there's someone I simply must meet," and she left him and walked at random toward a stranger. A black woman with a short fringed haircut, standing alone in the corner, sipping a soda-and-ricewater.

It was Emily Donato. She saw Laura coming and looked up with an expression of pure animal terror. Laura stopped short, jolted. "Emily," she said. "Hi."

"Hello, Laura." She was going to be civilized. Laura saw the resolve for it stiffen her face, saw her control the urge to flee.

The hubbub of conversation dropped an octave. People were watching them over their drinks, from the comers of their eyes. "I need a drink," Laura said. A meaningless utterance, she had to say something.

"I'll get you one."

"No, let's get the hell out of here." She pushed open the door and stepped out onto the walkway. A few people out on the landing, leaning on the rail, watching seagulls. Laura walked through them. Emily tagged after her, reluctantly.

They walked around the rampart, under the awning. It was getting cold and Emily, in her simple short-sleeved dress, clutched her bare brown arms. "I forgot my windbreaker....

No, it's okay. Really. " She put her drink on the wooden railing.

"You cut your hair," Laura said.

"Yeah," Emily said, "I travel pretty light these days."

Thudding silence. "Did you see Arthur's trial?"

Laura shook her head. "But I'm glad now you, never introduced me to the son-of-a-bitch."

"He made me feel like a whore," Emily said. Simple, abject. "He was F.A.C.T.! I still can't believe that some- times. That I was sleeping with the enemy, that I spilled the whole fucking thing, that it was all my fault." She burst into tears. "And then this! I don't know why I even showed my face here. I wish we were back in Mexico. I wish we were in hell!"

"For God's sake, Emily, don't talk like that."

"I disgraced my office. I disgraced the company. And God knows what I've done with my personal life." She was sobbing. "Now look what I've done-I've betrayed my best friend. You were in prison and I was sleeping with your goddamned husband! You must wish I was dead."

"No, I don't!" Laura blurted. "I know-I've been there.

It's no good at all."

Emily stared at her. The remark had stunned her. "I used to know you really well," she said. "I used to depend on you. You were the best pal I ever had.... Y'know, when I first came down here, to see David, I thought I was doing you a favor. I mean, I liked him, but he wasn't exactly doing

Rizome morale much good. Complaining, abusing people, drinking too much. I said, my dead pal would want me to look after David. I tried to do something really good, and it was the worst thing I've ever done."

"I'd have done it too," Laura said.

Emily sat in one of the folding lounge chairs and pulled in her legs. "That's not what I want," she said. "I want you to tell me how much you hate me. I can't stand it if you're so much nobler than I am."

"Okay, Emily." The truth burst out of her like an abcess.

"When I think of you and David sleeping together, I want to tear your fucking throat out."

Emily sat there and took it. She shuddered and flung it off.

"I can't make up for it. But I can run away."

"Don't run, Emily. He doesn't need that. He's a good man. He doesn't love me anymore, but he can't help that.

We're just too far apart now."

Emily looked up. Hope dawned. "So it's true? You're not gonna take him away from me?"

"No." She forced the words to come lightly. "We'll get the divorce. It won't be that much -trouble.... Except for the journalists."

Emily looked at her feet. She accepted it. The gift. "I do love him, you know. I mean, he's simple, and kind of dizzy sometimes, but he does have his good points." She had nothing left to hide. "I don't even need the pills. I just love him. I'm used to him. We're even talking about having a baby."

"Oh, really?" Laura sat down. It was such a strange thought that it somehow failed to touch her. It seemed pleasant somehow, homey. "Are you trying?"

"Not yet but ..." She paused. "Laura? We're gonna survive this, aren't we? I mean it won't be like it was, but we won't have to kill ourselves. We'll be okay."

"Yeah." Long silence.

She leaned toward Emily. Now that it was out between them some ghost of the old vibe was coming back. A kind of subterranean tingle as their buried friendship stirred.

Emily brightened. She could feel it too.

It lasted long enough for them to go back in with their arms around each other.

Everyone smiled.

She spent Christmas at her mother's place in. Dallas. And there was Loretta. A little girl who ran when she saw the lady in the hat and-sunglasses, and hid her face in her grandmoth- er's dress.

She was such a cute little thing. Spiky blond pigtails, greenish eyes. Quite a talker, too, once she got going. She said, "Gramma spill the milk," and laughed. She sang a little song about Christmas in which most of the verses were "na na na na" at top volume. After she got used to her, she sat in

Laura's lap and called her "Rarra."

"She's wonderful," Laura told her mother. "You've done really well with her."

"She's such a joy to me," said Margaret Alice Day Garfield

Nakamura Simpson. "I lost you-then I had her-now I have both of you. It's like a miracle. Not a day passes that I don't marvel at it. I've never been this happy in my life."

"Really, Mother?"

"I've had good times, and I've had bad times-this is the best time, for me. Since I've retired-shrugged the yoke off-it's me and Loretta. We're a family-it's like we're a little team."

"You must have been happy when you and Dad were together. I remember it. I always thought we were happy."

"Well, we were, yes. It wasn't quite this good, but it was good. Till the Abolition. Till I started doing eighteen-hour days. I could have chucked it your father wanted me to- but I thought, no, this is it, the greatest turning point I'll ever see in my lifetime. If I want to live in the world, I have to do this first. So I did it, and I lost him. Both of you."

"It must have hurt you terribly. I was young and didn't know-I only knew that it hurt me."

"I'm sorry, Laura. I know it's late, but I apologize to you."

"Thank you for saying that, Mother. I'm sorry too." She laughed. "It's funny that it should come to this. After all these years. Just a few words."

Her mother took her glasses off, dabbed at her eyes. "Your grandmother understood.... We never have much luck, Laura.

But you know, I think we're working it out! It's not the old way, but it's something. What are nuclear families, anyway?

Preindustrial.

"Maybe we can work it better this time around," Laura said. "I blew it so much worse than you did that maybe it won't hurt her so much."

"I should have seen more of you when you were growing up," her mother said. "But there was work and-oh, dear, I hate to say this-the world's full of men." She hesitated. "I know you don't want to think about that right now, but believe me, it does come back."

"That's nice to know, I guess." She watched the Christ- mas tree, flickering between two Japanese wall hangings.

"Right now the only men I see are journalists. Not much fun there. Ever since Vienna took the leash off, they're running hog wild."

"Nakamura was a journalist," her mother said thought- fully. "You know, I was never very happy with him, but it was certainly intense."

They had supper together, in her mother's elegant little dining nook. There was wine, and Christmas ham, and a little spread of newly invented scop from Britain that tasted like pate.' They could have eaten pounds of it.

"It's good, but it doesn't taste much like pate," her mother complained. "It's a bit more like, oh, salmon mousse."

"It's too expensive," Laura said. "Probably costs about ten cents to make."

"Well," her mother said tolerantly, "they have to recoup the research fees. "

"It'll be cheaper when Loretta grows up."

"By then they'll be making scop that tastes like every- thing, or anything, or nothing ever seen."

The thought was a little horrifying. I'm getting older,

Laura thought. Change itself is beginning to scare me.

She put the thought away. They played with Loretta until it was her bedtime. Then they talked for another couple of hours, sipping wine and eating cheese and being civilized.

Laura wasn't happy, but the edges were off, and she was something close to content. No one knew where she was, and that was a blessing. She slept well.

In the morning they exchanged presents.

The Central Committee had gathered in Rizome's' Stone

Mountain Retreat. There was the new CEO, Cynthia Wu.

And the committee itself, enough for a quorum: Garcia-Meza,

McIntyre, Kaufmann, and de Valera. Gauss and Salazar were away at a summit, while the elderly Saito was off somewhere taking the waters. And, of course, Suvendra was there, happy to see Laura, unhappily chewing nicotine gum.

Rusticating. They were doing a lot of that lately. Atlanta was a major city. There was always the whispered suggestion that it might become Ground Zero.

It was a typical Central Committee feed. Lentil soup, salad, and whole-grain bread. Voluntary simplicity-they all ate it and attempted to look more high-minded than thou.

The telecom office was a Frank Lloyd Wright revival, gridded concrete block pierced with glass, stacked and under- cut in severe geometrical elegance. The building seemed to fit

Mrs. Wu, a' schoolteacherish Anglo in her sixties who had come up through the marine-engineering section. She called the meeting back to order.

"Thanks to contacts," she told them, "we're getting this tape three days early, and before the network cuts it. I think this documentary serves as a capstone to the political work we pursued under my predecessor. I propose we use this opportu- nity, tonight, to reassess our policy. In retrospect, our former plans seem naive, and went seriously awry." She noticed de

Valera's hand. "Comment?"

"What exactly are you defining as success?"

"As I recall, our original strategy was to encourage the data havens to amalgamate. Thus maneuvering them into a bureaucratic, gesellschaft structure that would be more easily controlled-assimilated, if you will. Peacefully. Is there any- one here who thinks that policy worked?"

Kaufmann spoke. "It worked against the EFT Commerz- bank-though I admit it wasn't our doing. Still-they're legally entangled now. Harmless."

"Only because they fear being killed, Suvendra said.

"The anger of the Net is become an awesome force!"

"Let's face it," de Valera said. "If we'd known the true nature of the F.A.C.T. we'd have never dared become in- volved! On the other hand, the havens did lose, didn't they?

And we did win. Even our naivete worked to our advantage-at least no one can accuse Rizome of having ever supported

FACT, no matter how badly the havens pestered us."

"In other words our success was mostly luck," Mrs. Wu said crisply. "I agree-we've been fortunate. With the excep- tion of those Rizome associates who paid the price for our adventuring." She didn't have to glance at Laura to make her point.

"True enough," de Valera said. "But our motives were good and we fought the good fight. "

Mrs. Wu smiled. "I'm as proud of that as anyone. But I can hope we'll do better in the present political situation.

Now that the truth is out-and we can make what we laugh- ingly call informed decisions." She sat down, touching her watchphone. "Let's roll the tape."

The lights dimmed and the display screen at the head of the table flashed into life. "This is Dianne Arbright of 3N News, reporting from Tangiers. The , exclusive interview you are about to see was made under conditions of great personal danger to our 3N news team. In the wilderness of Algeria's

Air Mountains, isolated, without backup, we were little short of hostages in the hands of the now notorious Inadin Cultural

Revolution.... "

"What a glory hog," Garcia-Meza rumbled.

"Yeah," McIntyre said from the comfortable gemeineschaft darkness. "I wish I knew her hairdresser."

Footage followed, with Arbright's narrative. White jeeps jouncing cautiously through rugged mountain scenery. The news. team in dashing safari outfits, hats, scarves, hiking boots.

A sudden crowd of Tuaregs on dune buggies, emerging from nowhere. The jeep surrounded. Leveled guns. Real alarm on the faces of the news team, jerky cinema verite.

Cameras blocked by calloused hands.

Back to Arbright, somewhere in Tangiers. "We were searched for tracking devices, then blindfolded.' They ignored our protests, bound us hand and foot, and loaded all four of us into their vehicles, like sheep. We were hauled for hours through some of the roughest and most desolate territory in

Africa. The next footage you will see was taken in the depths of an ICR 'liberated zone.' In this heavily guarded, supersecret mountain fortress,- we were finally brought face to face with the so-called strategic genius of the ICR-ex-Special

Forces Colonel Jonathan Gresham."

More footage. They caught their breath. A cave, crude walls blasted out of living rock, dangling lightbulbs high overhead. Arbright sitting cross-legged on the carpet, her back to the camera.

Before her sat Gresham, turbanned, veiled, and cloaked, his massive head and shoulders framed in a spreading wicker peacock chair. Behind him at left and right stood two Tuareg lieutenants, with slung automatic rifles, black bandoliers, ceremonial Tuareg swords with jeweled hilts and tasseled scabbards, combat knives, grenades, pistols.

"You may proceed," Gresham announced.

Mrs. Wu froze the tape. "Laura, you're our situation expert. Is it him?"

"It's him," Laura said. "He's been to a laundry, but that's

Jonathan Gresham, all right."

"Do they always look like that?" de Valera asked.

Laura laughed. "They wouldn't last five minutes like that, out on operations. Those silly swords, all that hardware- they've got everything but flyswatters. Gresham's trying to put the voodoo on her."

"I've never seen a more terrifying figure," said Mrs. Wu, sincerely. "Why is he hiding his face? His photo. must be on file somewhere anyway."

"He's wearing the tagelmoust," Laura said. "That veil and turban-it's traditional for male Tuaregs. A kind of male chador."

"That's a switch," McIntyre said. Deliberate lightness.

She was scared, too.

"Thank you, Colonel Gresham." Arbright was shaken but she was going to tough it out. A professional. "Let me begin by asking, Why did you agree to this interview?"

"You mean why you-or why at all?"

"Let's begin with why at all."

"I know what's happened in your world," Gresham said.

"We blew Vienna's shell game, and the Net wants to know why. What's in it for us? Who are we, what do we want?

When the Net wants to know, it sends its army journalists.

So I'm willing to meet with exactly one-you. I depend on you to warn the rest off.' "I'm not sure I follow you, Colonel. I can't speak for my media colleagues, but I'm certainly not a soldier."

"The Malian regime gave us a war of extermination. We understand that. We also understand the far more insidious threat that you pose, with your armies of cameramen. We don't want your world. We don't respect your values and we don't care to be touched. We are not a tourist attraction-we are a revolution, not a zoo. We will not be tamed or assimi- lated. By your very nature, by your very presence, you would force assimilation on us. That will not be allowed."

"Colonel, you've been a journalist yourself, as well as a soldier, and, ah, cultural theorist. You must be aware that popular interest in you and your activities is very intense."

"Yes, I am. That's why I fully expect to litter this desert with the bones of your colleagues in years to come. But I'm a soldier-not a terrorist. When our enemies-your colleagues are killed in our liberated zones, they'll die knowing the reason. Assuming, that is, that I can trust you to do your job."

"I won't censor you, Colonel. I'm not Vienna, either."

"Yes-I know that. I know you pushed the coverage of the

Grenada terror attack well past Vienna's limits, at some risk to your career. That's why I chose you-you have some spine."

The second cameraman had now wandered into range and got a reaction shot. Arbright smiled at Gresham. Dimples.

Laura knew what she was feeling. She was fairly tight with

Arbright these days. Had done an interview with her, a good one. She even knew the name of Arbright's hairdresser.

"Colonel, did you know that your book on the Lawrence

Doctrine is now a best-seller?"

"It was pirated," Gresham said. "And expurgated."

"Could you explain a bit of the doctrine for our viewers?"

"I suppose it's preferable to having them read it," Gresham said reluctantly. Feigned reluctance, Laura thought. "Over a century ago, Lawrence ... he was British, First World War

... discovered how a tribal society could defend itself from industrial imperialism.... The Arab Revolt stopped the Turkish cultural advance, literally in its tracks. They did this with guerrilla assaults on the railroads and telegraphs, the Turkish industrial control system. For success, however, the Arabs were forced to use industrial artifacts-namely, guncotton, dynamite, and canned food. For us it is solar power, plastique, and single-cell protein."

He paused. "The Arabs made the mistake of trusting the

British, who were simply the Turks by another name. The

First World War was a proto-Net civil war, and the Arabs were thrust aside. 'Til oil came-then they were assimilated.

Brave efforts like the Iranian revolt of 1979 were too little too late ... they were already fighting for television."

"Colonel-you speak as if you don't expect anyone to sympathize."

"I don't. You live by your system. Vienna, Mali, Azania- it's all imperial hardware, just different brand names."

"The British political analyst Irwin Craighead has described you as `the first credible right-wing intellectual since T. E.

Lawrence.' "

Gresham touched his veil. "I'm a postindustrial tribal anarchist.

Is that considered `right-wing' these days? You'll have to ask Craighead."

"I'm sure Sir Irwin would be delighted to discuss definitions."

"I'm not going to Britain-and if he tries to invade our zones, he'll be ambushed like anyone else."

Mrs. Wu froze the tape. "This litany of death threats is very annoying."

"Arbright's got him rattled," de Valera gloated. "Typical right-winger-full of bullshit!"

"Hey!" Garcia-Meza objected. "You should talk, de

Valera-you and your socialist internal-money system-"

"Please don't start on that again," Kaufmann said. "Anyway, he's interesting, is he not? Here's a fellow who could be a world hero-not to everyone perhaps, but enough of us- and not only is he staying out there in hell, but he's talked these other poor souls into joining him!"

"His ideology sucks," de Valera said. "If he wants to be a desert hermit, he could move to Arizona and stop paying his phone bills. He doesn't need the shoulder-launched- rockets and the whole nine yards."

"I'm with de Valera on this one," McIntyre said. "And I still don't see how the Russian space station fits in."

"He's confused," Laura said. "He's not sure what he's doing is right. It's like-he wants to be as different from us as he can, but he can't get us out of himself. He's full of some kind of self-hatred I can't understand."

"Let's give him his say," Garcia-Meza said.

They ran more tape. Arbright asked Gresham about FACT.

"The Malian regime is finished," Gresham said, "the sub- marine is just a detail," and he began talking about Azanian

"imperialism." Detailing how roads could be land-mined, convoys ambushed, communication links cut, until Azanian

"expansionism" was "no longer economically tenable."

Then without warning he started in on plans to heal the desert. "Agriculture is the oldest and most vicious of humani- ty's bio-technologies. Rather than deracinated farmers in

Azanian sterilization camps, there should be wandering tribes of eco-decentralized activists...."

"He's a screwball," de Valera said.

"I think we're all agreed on that," Mrs. Wu said. She turned down the sound. "The question is, what is our policy?

Is Gresham any less threatening to us than Grenada or Singa- pore? He certainly cultivates a line in aggressive bluster."

"Grenada and Singapore were pirates and parasites," Laura said. "Grant him this much-he only wants to be left alone."

"Come on," de Valera said. "What about all that high- tech hardware? He didn't get that by selling handmade jewelry."

"Aha!" said Garcia-Meza. "Then that is where he's vulnerable. "

"Why we should harm someone who fought the F.A.C.T.?".

Suvendra said. "And if they could not frighten or defeat his people, could we?"

"Good point," said Mrs. Wu. They watched Gresham lean back briefly in his peacock chair and mutter an order to the lieutenant on his left. The Tuareg saluted smartly and swag- gered away, off-camera.

"He is in a desert no one wants," Suvendra said. "Why force him to come after us?"

"What the hell could he do to us?" de Valera said. "He's a Luddite."

Laura spoke heavily. "Can you run the tape back? I think that man who just walked off-camera was Sticky Thompson."

They stirred in shock. Mrs. Wu ran it again. "Yeah,"

Laura said. "That walk, that salute. Under that veil, it's got to be him. Sticky-Nesta Stubbs. Of course-where else would he go? I wondered what had become of him."

"That's horrible," de Valera said.

"No, it's not," Laura told him. "He's over therein the desert with Gresham. He's not over here."

"Oh, my God," McIntyre said. "And to think I stay up at night worrying about atom bombs. We'd better tell Vienna immediately."

They stared at her. "Smart move," de Valera said at last.

"Vienna. Wow. That'll really scare him."

Mrs. Wu rubbed her forehead. "What do we do now?"

"I can think of one thing," Laura said. "We can protect his supply lines, so no one else bothers him! And I know one supply that's got to mean more to him than anything. Iron

Camels, from GoMotion Unlimited in Santa Clara, Califor- nia. We should make inquiries."

"Rizome-GoMotion," McIntyre said. "Doesn't sound half bad."

"Good," Garcia-Meza said. "He is vulnerable, as I said.

Transport-that would give us influence over him."

"We might be better off forgetting all about him," de

Valera said. "It's hot in the Sahara. Maybe they'll all evaporate."

"No one's ever going to forget Gresham," Laura said.

"They never forget what they can't have.... We'd better get hold of that company." She looked around the table as they sat in the flickering television dimness. "Don't you see it?

Iron Camels-the Jonathan Gresham Look. Every would-be tough guy and rugged individualist and biker lunatic on this planet is gonna want one for himself. In six months Arizona will be full of guys in nylon tagelmousts breaking their necks." She propped her head in her hands. "And there's not a damn thing he can do about that."

"Could be worth millions," de Valera mused. "Hell, I'd bet on it." He looked up. "When does this thing air?"

"Three days."

"Can we do anything in that time?"

"In California? Sure," said Mrs. Wu. "If we get right on it.'

So they got right on it.

Laura was cleaning her kitchen when her watchphone buzzed.

She touched it and the door opened. Charles Cullen, Rizome's former CEO, stood out in the corridor in denim overalls.

"Mr. Cullen," she said, surprised. "I hadn't heard you were back in Atlanta."

"Just dropping in on old friends. Sorry I didn't call, but your new phone protocols.... Hope you don't mind."

"No, I'm glad to see you. C'mon in." He crossed the living room and she came out of the kitchen. They hugged briefly, cheek-kissed. He looked at her and grinned suddenly.

"You haven't heard yet, have you?"

"Heard what?"

"You haven't been watching the news?"

"Not in days," Laura said, throwing magazines off the couch. "Can't stand it-too depressing, too weird."

Cullen laughed aloud. "They bombed Hiroshima, he said.

Laura went white and grabbed for the couch.

"Easy," he said. "They fucked up! It didn't work!" He rolled the armchair behind her. "Here, Laura, sit down, sorry.... It didn't explode! It's sitting in a tea-garden in downtown Hiroshima right now. Dead, useless. It came flying out of the sky-tumbling, the eyewitnesses said-and it hit the bottom of the garden and it's lying there in the dirt. In big pieces "

"When did this happen?"

"Two hours ago. Turn on the television."

She did. It was ten in the morning, Hiroshima time. Nice bright winter morning. They had the area cordoned off. Yel- low suits, masks, geiger counters. Good helicopter overhead shot of the location. Tiny little place in wood and ceramic in some area zoned for small restaurants.

The missile was lying there crushed. It looked like some- thing that had -fallen off a garbage scow. Most of it was engine, burst copper piping, ruptured corrugated steel.

She turned down the gabbling narrative. "Isn't 'it full of uranium?"

"Oh, they got the warhead out first thing. Intact. They think the trigger failed. Conventional explosive. They're look- ing at it now."

"Those evil bastards!" Laura screamed suddenly and slapped the coffee table hard. "How could they pick Hiroshima?"

Cullen sat down on the couch. He could not seem to stop grinning. Half amusement, half twisted nervous fear.. She'd never seen him smile so much. This crisis was bringing out the bizarre in everyone. "Perfect choice," he said: "Big enough to show you mean it-small enough to show restraint.

They're evacuating Nagasaki right now."

"My God, Cullen."

"Oh," he said, "call me Charlie. Got anything to drink?"

"Huh? Sure. Good idea." She called the liquor cabinet over.

"You've got Drambuie!" Cullen said, looking. He picked out a pair of liqueur glasses. "Have a drink." He poured, spilled a sticky splash on the coffee table. "Whoops."

"God, poor Japan." She sipped it. She couldn't help but blurt her thought aloud. "I guess this means they can't get us."

"They're not gonna get anybody," he said, gulping. "The whole world's after 'em. Sound detectors, sonar, anything that can float. Hell, they got the whole Singapore Air Force scrambling for the East China Sea. They picked the bomb up on airport radar coming in, got a trajectory...." His eyes gleamed. "That sub's gonna die. I can feel it."

She refilled their glasses. "Sorry, there's not much left."

"What else have we got?"

"Uh ..." She winced. "Some plum wine. And quite a bit of sake."

"Sounds great," he said unthinkingly. He was staring at the television. "Can't send out for liquor. It's quiet here in your place ... but believe me, it's getting very strange out in those corridors."

"I've got some cigarettes," she confessed.

"Cigarettes! Wow, I don't think I've smoked one of those since I was a little kid."

She got the cigarettes from the back of the liquor cabinet and brought out her antique ashtray.

He looked away from the television-it had switched to a public statement by the Japanese premier. Meaningless fig- urehead. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to barge in on you like this. I was in your building before I heard the news and.... Actually, I was just hoping that we could... you know ... have a good talk."

"Well, talk to me anyway. Because otherwise I think I'm going to have a fit." She shivered. "I'm glad you're here, Charlie.

I'd hate to be watching this alone."

"Yeah-me too. Thanks for saying that."

"I guess you'd rather be with Doris."

"Doris?"

"That is your wife's name, isn't it? Did I forget?"

He raised his brows. "Laura, Doris and I have been sepa- rated, for two months now. If we were still together I'd have brought her with me." He stared at the television. "Turn it off," he said suddenly. "I can only handle one crisis at a time. "

"But-"

"Fuck it, it's gesellschafr stuff. Out of our hands."

She turned it off. Suddenly she could feel the Net's ab- sence like a chunk taken out of her brain.

"Calm down," he said. "Do some deep breathing. Ciga- rettes are bad for us anyway."

"I didn't know about Doris. Sorry."

"It's the demotion," he said. "Things were fine as long as

I was CEO, but she couldn't take the Retreat. I mean, she knew it was coming, that it's customary, but ... "

She looked at his denim overalls. They were worn at the knees. "I think they take this demotion ritual a little too far

... what do they have you do, mostly?"

"Oh, I'm in the old folks home. Change sheets-reminisce- pitch a little hay sometimes. Not so bad. Kind of gives you the long view."

"That's a very correct attitude, Charlie."

"I mean it," he said. "This Bomb crisis has people totally obsessed right now, but the long-term view's still there, if you can back off enough to look at it. Grenada and Singapore

... they had wild ideas, reckless, but if we're smart, and very careful, we might use that kind of radical potential sensibly. There's a world of hurt to be put right first ... maybe a lot more if these bastards bomb us...ut someday ..."

"Someday what?" Laura said.

"I don't really know what to call it.... Some kind of genuine, basic improvement in the human condition.'.'

"It could do with some," Laura said. She smiled at him.

She liked the sound of it. She liked him, for having brought up the long term, in the very middle of hell breaking loose.

The very best time for it, really. "I like it," she said.

"Sounds like interesting work. We could talk about it to- gether. Network a little."

"I'd like that. When I'm back in the swing of things," he said. He looked embarrassed. "I don't mind being out of it a while. I didn't handle it 'well. The power... . You should know that, Laura. Better than anyone."

"You did very well-everyone says so. You're not respon- sible for what happened to me. I went into it with my eyes open."

"Jesus, it's really good of you to say that." He looked at the floor. "I dreaded this meeting.... I mean, you were nice enough the few times we've met, but I didn't know how you'd take it."

"Well, it's our work! It's what we do, what we are."

"You really believe in that, don't you? The community."

"I have to. It's all I have left."

"Yeah," he said. "Me too." He smiled. "Can't be such a bad thing. I mean, we're both in it. Here we are. Solidarity,

Laura. "

"Solidarity." They clicked glasses and drank the last

Drambuie.

"It's good," he said. He looked around. "Nice place."

"Yeah... they keep the journos out.... Got a nice bal- cony, too. You like heights?"

"Yeah, what is this, fortieth floor? I can never tell these big Atlanta digs apart. " He stood up. "I could use some air. "

"Okay." She walked toward the balcony; the double doors flung themselves open. They stood on the balcony looking down to the distant street.

"Impressive," he said. Across the street they could see another high-rise, floor after floor, curtains open here and there, glow of television news. The balcony was open above them and they could hear it muttering out. The tone rising.

"It's good to be here," he said. "I'll remember this mo- ment. Where I was, what I was doing. Hell, everyone will.

Years from now. For the rest of our lives."

"I think you're right. I know you are."

"It's either gonna be the absolute worst, or the final end of something. "

"Yeah... I should have brought the sake bottle." She leaned on the railing. "You wouldn't blame me, Charlie, would you? If it was the worst? Because I did have a part in it. I did it."

"Never even occurred to me."

"I mean, I'm only one person, but I did what one person can do."

"Can't ask for more than that."

There was a bestial scream from upstairs. Joy, rage, pain, hard to tell. "That was it," he said.

People were pouring into the streets. They were jumping out of vans. Running headlong. Running for one another.

Distant leaping bits of anonymity: -the crowd.

Horns were honking. People were embracing each other.

Strangers, kissing. A mob flinging itself into its own arms.

Windows began flying open across the street.

"They got 'em," he said.

Laura looked down at the crowd. "Everybody's so happy,"

she said.

He had the sense not to say anything. He just held out his hand.