Islands in the Net

6

Twas a nightmarish flight-like a cattle car. Luggage crammed everywhere, every seat taken, and refugees crouching in the aisles. Nothing to eat or drink. An instant black market, packed into a flying aluminum jail.

There were five armed Cuban flight marshals onboard.

They kept fending back entrepreneurs-sweaty hustlers trying to scrape together some global cash. Their tinker-toy Grenadian roubles were meaningless now; they needed ecu and were selling anything-pinky rings, strips of drug stickers, sisters if they had them... . Cut off from the world, thirty thousand feet above the Caribbean, but still going through the ritual motions. But faster now, senselessly, jumping and flickering .. ' .

"Like a lizard throwing off its tail," Laura said. "That's what the Bank did with these people. Let the Net have 'em, let the Vienna heat work 'em over. To distract attention."

"You told Andrei you'd go to Singapore," David said.

"Yeah."

"No way," David said. In his toughest voice.

"We're in too deep to back out now."

"The hell," he said. "We could have been killed today.

This isn't our problem-not anymore. It's way too big for us.

"So what do we do? Go back to our Lodge and hope they forget all about us?"

"There's lots of other Lodges," David said. "We could go into a Retreat. You and I, we could do with a good Retreat sabbatical. Relax a little, get away from the televisions. Get our thoughts together."

A Retreat. Laura didn't like the idea. Retreats were for

Rizome's retired people, or failures, or blunderers. A place to rusticate while other people made the decisions. "That won't wash," she said. "It would discredit Rizome's attempt to negotiate. But we were right to try it. We have to do something. It's coming to a head-this proves it.

"Then it should be the U.S. State Department," David said. "Or the Vienna heat-somebody global. Not our company. "

"Rizome is global! Besides, Grenada would shoot a Yan- kee diplomat on sight. State Department-come on, David, you might as well send in guys with big placards around their neck that say `hostage.' " She sniffed. "Besides, the Feds don't have any clout."

"This is a war. Governments run wars. Not corporations."

"That's premillennium talk," Laura said. "The world's different now."

"You could have been one of those dead bodies in the water. Or me, or the baby. Don't your realize that?"

"I know it better than you," she said grimly. "You weren't standing next to me when they killed Stubbs."

David flushed. "That's a shitty thing to say. I'm standing next to you now, aren't I?"

"Are you?"

His jaw muscles clenched and he stared at his hands as if willing them not to punch her. "Well, I guess that depends, doesn't it? On what you think you're doing."

"I know my long-term goals, Laura said. "Which is more than you can say." She touched the baby's cheek. "What kind of world will she live in? That's what's at stake."

"That sounds really noble," he said. "And just a hair away from megalomania. The world's bigger than the two of us.

We don't live in the `globe,' Laura. We live with each other.

And our child."

He took a deep breath, let it out. "I've had it, that's all.

Maybe my number came up once--okay, I'll stand in the front lines for Rizome. I'll do one tour of duty. I'll watch dead bodies, I'll have my house burned over my head. But they don't pay me enough to die."

"Nobody's ever paid that much," Laura said. "But we can't watch people be murdered, and say it's fine and dandy and none of our business."

"We're not indispensable. Let somebody else have a shot at playing Joan of Arc."

"But I know what's happening," she said. `.'That makes me valuable. I've seen things other people didn't. Even you,

David. "

"Oh, great," David said. "So now you're going to start in on how I walk through life in a fog. Listen, Mrs. Webster, I saw more of the real Grenada than you ever did. The real things-not this trivial power-play bullshit that you run with your old girls' network. Goddamn it, Laura! You've got to learn to take some setbacks and accept your limits!"

"You mean your limits," Laura said.

He stared. "Sure. If you want to see it that way. My limits. I've reached them. That's it. End of discussion."

She sank back into her seat, raging. Fine. He'd given up listening. Let's see how some silence suited him.

After a few hours of silence she realized she'd made a mistake. But it was too late to go back then.

Police boarded the plane at Havana Airport. The passen- gers were marched off-not exactly at gunpoint, but close enough not to matter much. It was dark and raining. Behind a distant line of striped sawhorses, the Spanish-language press lifted cameras and shouted questions. One exile tried to wan- der in their direction, waving his arms-he was quickly herded back.

They entered a wing of the terminal, surrounded by jeeps. It was crawling with customs men. And the Vienna heat- exquisitely dressed plainclothesmen with their portable termi- nals and speckled glasses.

Police began hustling the refugees into ragged lines. Cuban cops, locals, demanding ID. They escorted a group of trium- phantly grinning techs past the glowering Viennese. Law - enforcement turf battles. Cuba had never been all that hot about the Convention.

Someone called out in Japanese. "Laura-san ni o-banashi shitai no desu ga!"

"Koko desu," she answered. She spotted them--a young

Japanese couple, standing near an exit door beside a uni- formed Cuban cop. "C'mon," she told David-her fast word to him in hours and walked toward them. "Donata ni goyo desu ka?"

The woman smiled shyly, bowing, "Rara Rebsta?"

"Hai," Laura said. "That's me." She gestured at David.

"Kore wa David Webster to iu mono desu."

The woman reached for Loretta's tote. Surprised, David let her take it. The woman wrinkled her nose. "0-mutsu o torikaetea hoga iito omoimasu."

"Yeah, we ran out of them," Laura said. Blank looks.

"Diapers. Eigo wa shabere masuka?" They shook their heads glumly. "They don't speak English," she told David.

"Que tal?" David said. "Yo no hablo japones-un poquito solo. Uhh ... iquien es Ustedes? j su amigo interesante?"

"Somos de Kymera Havana," the man said happily. He bowed and shook David's hand. "Bienvenidos a Cuba, Senor

Rebsta! Soy Yoshio, y mi esposa, Mika. Y el Capitan Reyes, del Habana Securidad ... "

"It's Kymera Corporation," David said.

"Yeah, I know."

"Looks like they've made some kind of arrangement with the local police." He paused. "Kymera-they're with us, right? Economic democrats."

"Solidaridad," Yoshio told him, holding up two fingers.

He winked and opened the door.

Kymera had a car waiting.

Kymera was very well prepared. They had everything.

New passports for them-legal ones. New decks. Diapers and baby formula. A change of clothes that almost fit, or would have if they hadn't been eating Rita's banquets. And they'd cooled things with the Cuban police. Laura thought it was best not to ask how.

They spent a quiet evening in miraculous, cozy safety at one of Kymera's Havana compounds. And off the Net, in privacy-a kind of ecstasy, like getting over an illness. Their rooms were smaller and everything was closer to the floor, but otherwise it was like old home week in a Rizome Lodge.

They chatted in Japanese and Spanish over seafood and sake, and met the Takedas' adorable four-year-old.

"Rizome has shown us some of your tapes," Yoshio said, pausing for translations. "We are coordinating. Putting all cards on the table between us."

"You saw the-terrorist attack, then," Laura said.

Yoshio nodded. "Mali has gone too far."

"You're sure it's Mali?"

"We know," Yoshio said. "We used to hire them."

Laura was stunned. "Kymera hired the F.A.C.T.?"

Yoshio looked sheepish, but determined to have it out.

"We suffered much from piracy. The `Army of Counter-

Terrorism' offered us their services. To frighten the pirates, discourage them. Yes, even kill them. They were efficient.

We paid them secretly for years. So did many other companies.

It seemed better than making armies of our own people. "

David and Laura conferred. David was scandalized. "The

Japanese hired terrorist mercenaries?"

Yoshio looked impatient. "We're not Japanese! Kymera is incorporated in Mexico."

"Oh.'

"You know how things are in Japan," Yoshio scoffed.

"Fat! Lazy! Full of elderly people, far behind the times ..."

He tapped his cup and Mika poured him sake. "Too much success in Japan! It's Japanese politics that created this world crisis. Too much behind the scenes. Too many polite lies- hipokurasi... " He used the English word. The Japanese terms for the word hypocrisy sounded too much like compliments.

"We thought the Free Army was a necessary evil," he continued. "We never knew they were so ambitious. So smart, so fast. The Free Army is the dark side of our own conglomerates-our keiretsu."

"But what does Mali have to .gain?"

"Nothing! The Free Army owns that country. They con- quered it while it was weak with famine. They've grown stronger and stronger, while we quietly paid them and pre- tended not to know that they existed. They used to hide, like a rat-now they are grown large, like a tiger."

More translations. "What are you saying?" David said.

"I say the Net has too many holes. All these criminals-

Singapore, Cyprus, Grenada, even Mali itself, which we creaed-must be crushed. It had to happen. It is happening today. The Third World War is here."

Mika giggled.

"It is a little war," Yoshio admitted. "Does not live up to its press, eh? Small, quiet, run by remote control. Fighting in places where no one looks, like Africa. Places we neglected, because we could not make profit there. Now we must stop being so blind."

"Is this Kymera's official policy line these days?" Laura said.

"Not just ours," Yoshio said. "Talk is spreading fast, since the attack. We were prepared for something like this.

Kymera is launching a diplomatic offensive. We are taking our case to many other multinationals. East, West, South,

North. If we can act in concert, our power is very great.'

"You're proposing some kind of global security cartel?"

Laura said.

"Global Co-Prosperity Sphere!" Mika said. "How does that sound?"

"Uhmm," David mused. "In America, that's known as

`conspiracy in restraint of trade.' "

"What is your loyalty?" Yoshio asked soberly. "America or Rizome?"

Laura and David exchanged glances. "Surely it wouldn't come to that," Laura said.

"Do you think America can set things to rights? Rearm, invade the data havens, and impose peace?"

"No way," David said. "The other Vienna signatories would be all over us.... `Imperial America'-Christ, it wouldn't be six months before people were car-bombing us all over the world." He prodded glumly with his chopsticks at a lump of sukiyaki. "And ay de mi, los Rusos-not that the

Soviets amount to much these days, but would they ever be pissed.... Look, the real agency to handle these matters is the

Vienna Convention. The Vienna spooks are licensed to stop terrorism-that's their job."

"Then why aren't they doing it?" Yoshio said.

"Well," David said uneasily, "I guess it's like the U.N. used to be. A good idea, but when it comes down to it, no sovereign government really wants to-"

"Exactamente," Yoshio said. "No government. But we could be very happy with a global police force. And Vienna is global. Un grupo nuevo-millennario. Just like a modem keiretsu."

Laura shoved her plate away, struggling with her Japanese.

"Vienna exists to protect `the political order.' To protect governments. They don't belong to us. Corporations can't sign diplomatic treaties." .

"Why not?" Yoshio said bluntly. "A treaty is only a contract. You're talking like my grandmother. It's our world now. Now there's a tiger loose in it! A tiger we made- because we foolishly paid other people to be the claws and teeth of our corporations."

"Who bells the cat?" said Mika in English. She poured fresh sake into the little electric kettle.

Yoshio laughed at them. "Such long faces. Why be so shocked? You were acting as Rizome diplomats already- subverting Grenada for your corporate politics. Don't be so- what's the word? Inscrutable! Be more modem!" He stretched out his kimono'd arms. "Grab the problem with both hands."

"I don't see how that's possible," Laura said.

"It's very possible," Yoshio said. "Kymera and. Farben have studied this problem. With help from other allies, such as your Rizome, we could multiply Vienna's budget many times, quickly. We could hire many mercenaries and put them under Vienna's command. We could launch a sudden attack on Mali and kill the tiger immediately."

"Is that legal?" David said.

Yoshio shrugged. "Who do you ask? Who makes that decision? Governments like America? Or Japan? Or Mali or

Grenada? Or do we decide, instead? Let's vote." He raised his hand. "I say it's Legal."

Mika raised her hand. "Me too."

"How long can we wait?" Yoshio said. "The Free Army attacked a little island, but it could have been Manhattan

Island. Should we wait for that?"

"But you're talking about bribing the global police," Laura said. "That sounds like a coup d'etat!"

" `Kudetah?' " Yoshio said, blinking. He shrugged. "Why work through governments anymore? Let us cut out the middleman."

"But Vienna would never agree. Would they?"

"Why not? Without us, they will never be a true global army. "Let me get this straight," Laura said. "You're talking about a corporate army, without any legal national backing, invading sovereign nations?"

"A revolution is not a dinner party," Mika said. She rose gracefully and began clearing dinner away.

Yoshio smiled. "Modern governments are weak. We have made them weak. Why pretend otherwise? We can play them against one another. They need us worse than we need them."

"Traicion," David said. "Treason."

"Call it a labor strike," Yoshio suggested.

"But by the time you got all your corporations together,"

Laura said, "government police would be arresting your con- spirators right and left."

"It is a little race, isn't it?" Yoshio observed brightly.

"But let us see who controls the Vienna police. They will do much arresting before this is over. The bureaucrats call us

`traitors'? We can call them 'terrorist sympathizers.' "

"But you're talking global revolution!"

"Call it `rationalization,' " Yoshio suggested, handing Mika a plate. "It sounds nicer. We remove unnecessary barriers in the flow of the global Net. Barriers that happen to be governments. "

"But what kind of world would that give us?"

"It would depend on who made the new rules," Yoshio said. "If you join the winning side, you get to vote. If not, well ..." He shrugged.

"Yeah? What if your side loses?"

"Then the nations get to fight over us, to try us for treason," Mika said. "The courts could sort it out. In fifty years maybe."

"I think I'd burn my Japanese passport and become a

Mexican citizen," Yoshio mused. "Maybe all of us could become Mexican citizens. Mexico wouldn't complain. Or we could try Grenada! We could try a new country every year."

"Don't betray your own government," Mika suggested.

"Just betray everyone else's government. No one ever called

-_,that treason."

"Rizome elections are coming up soon," Yoshio said.

"You say you're economic democrats. If you believe in the

Net if you believe your own morality-you cannot escape this issue. Why not put it to a vote?"

Even at Atlanta's airport, Laura felt that hemmed-in, antsy feeling the city always gave her. The megalopolis, that edgy tempo ... So many Americans, with their clean, expensive clothes and bulging luggage. Milling under the giant, slanting openwork of multimillion-ecu geodesics, sleek designer geometries of light and space. Rose-pink abstract mobiles, reacting to the crowd flow, dipped and whirled slowly overhead. Like exploded cybernetic flocks of flamingos ...

"Wow," David said, nudging her with the baby's tote.

"Who's the fox with Emily?"

Two women approaching. One, short and round-faced, in long skirt and frilled blouse: Emily Donato. Laura felt a surge of pleasure and relief. Emily was here, Rizome's cavalry.

Laura waved.

And Emily's companion: a tall black woman with a lovely machine-curled mane of auburn hair, carrying herself like a runway model. Lean and elegant, with coffee-colored skin and cheekbones to die for. "Whoa," Laura said. "That's- what's her name-Arbright something."

"Dianne Arbright on cable news," David said, gawking.

"A media talking head. Look, she's got legs just like a real human being!"

David gave Emily a hard, crunching hug, lifting her off the floor. Emily laughed at him and kissed his cheeks. "Hi,"

Laura said to the TV journalist. She shook Arbright's cool, muscular hand. "I suppose this means we're famous."

"Yeah, this crowd's full of journos," Arbright told her.

She flicked the lapel of her saffron silk business vest. "I'm wired for sound, by the way."

"So are we, I think," Laura said. "I got a telly-rig in my carry-on. "

"I'll pool my data with the other correspondents," Arbright said. There was the faintest beading of sweat on her upper lip, below the sleek mocha perfection of her video makeup. "Not that we can air it, but ... we network behind the scenes."

She glanced at Emily. "Y'all know how it is."

Laura watched Arbright with an eerie sense of dislocation.

Meeting Dianne Arbright in person was a bit like seeing the

"real" Mona Lisa-some essential reality leached out by too many reproductions. "Is it Vienna?" she said.

Arbright allowed herself a grimace. "We ran some of

Rizome's disaster footage two days ago. We know how bad it is there-the casualty counts, the forms of attack. But since then, Grenada's -sealed its borders. And Vienna censors ev- erything we air."

"But this is too big to contain," Emily said. "And every- body knows it. This goes way past the limits-somebody just trashed an entire country, for Christ's sake."

"It's the biggest terrie operation since Santa Vicenza,"

,Arbright said.

"What happened there?" David asked innocently.

Arbright gave David the bIank look one gives to the termi- nally out-of-it. "Maybe you an tell me exactly what hap- pened at your Lodge in Galveston," Arbright said at last.

"Oh," David said. "I, uh, guess I see what you mean."

" `Damage limitation,' " Laura said. "That's what hap- pened in Galveston. "

"And in a lot of other places-for years," Arbright said.

"So you two are nonpeople, deep-background, off the record.

Kinda tough on the good old First Amendment ... " Arbright flashed some high sign at a brown-suited stranger in the crowd, who grinned and nodded at her. "But Vienna can't stop us from discovering the truth-just from publicizing it."

They filtered toward one of the exists. Arbright tapped her platinum watchphone. "I got a limo waiting...."

"The Vienna heat's here!" David said.

Arbright glanced up placidly. "Nah. It's just some guy wearin' viddies."

"How can you tell?" David said.

"He's got the wrong vibe for Vienna," Arbright told him patiently. "Viddies don't mean much-I wear 'em myself sometimes. "

"We've been wearing viddies for days," Laura said.

Arbright perked up. "You mean you've got it all? Your whole tour of Grenada? On tape?"

"Every minute," David told her. "Damn near."

"It's worth plenty," Arbright said.

"Oughta be," David grumbled. "It was a living hell."

"Emily," Arbright said, "who owns the rights, and what are you asking?"

"Rizome doesn't peddle news for money," Emily said virtuously. "That's gesellschaft stuff.... Besides, there's the little matter of explaining what Rizome personnel were doing in a pirate data haven."

"Mmm," Arbright said. "Yeah, that's a tough angle."

Glass double doors hissed open and shut for them, and

Arbright's stretch limo flung its door over curb amid a line of taxis. The limo had mirrored windows d a set of microwave beamers in its roof that looked like water-cooled ray guns. They jumped in, following Arbright's lead. The limo slid away.

"Now we're cool," Arbright announced. She popped down a sliding cabinet door and checked her makeup in a stage mirror. "My people have worked this limo over-it's surveillance-right. "

They headed down a curving access ramp. It was an ugly day, gray September overcast cutting across the Atlanta sky- line. A mountain range of skyscrapers: postmodern, neo-

Gothic, Organic Baroque, even a few boxy premillennium relics, dwarfed by their weird progeny. "Three cars are fol- lowing us," Emily said.

"Jealous of my sources." Arbright smiled, her eyes light- ing up to television wattage. David turned to look.

"They're tracking all of us," Emily said. "The whole

Rizome committee. Got our apartments staked out-and I think Vienna's tapping our lines." She rubbed her eyelids.

"Dianne-you got a wet bar in this thing?"

Arbright picked up an eyebrow pencil. "Just tell the machine. "

"Car, make me a Dirty Kimono," Emily commanded. She rubbed her neck, mashing curls. "Not much sleep lately-I'm a little wired."

"They're really after us? Vienna?" David said.

"They're after everybody. Like an anthill jabbed with a stick." The car gave Emily a cloudy mix that reeked of sake.

"This meeting we held with Kymera and Farben-'summit,'

they called it...." She blinked and sipped her drink. "Laura,

I missed you."

"Getting crazy," Laura said. An old tag line from their college. days together. How tired Emily looked-crow's feet in the fine-boned hollow of her temples, more gray threading

'in her hair-tired hell, why mince words, Laura thought, they were both in their thirties now. Not college kids. Old. An impulse struck her, and she rubbed Emily's shoulders. Emily almost dropped her glass in gratification. "Yeah," she said.

"Who are you with?" David asked Arbright.

"You mean my company?"

"I mean your basic loyalties."

"Oh," Arbright said. "I'm a professional. An American journalist."

David looked tentative. " `American?' "

"I don't believe in Vienna," Arbright declared. "Spooks and censors telling Americans what we can and can't say.

Cover-ups to deny the terries publicity-that was always a half-assed idea." She tossed her head. "Now the whole system, the whole political structure... is gonna blow to hell!" She slapped the seat with the flat of her hand. "I've been waiting for this for years! Man, I'm as happy about it as a cutworm in corn!" She looked surprised at herself. "As my granddad used to say ... "

"Sounds kind of anarchical...." David rocked the tote on his knees. Little Loretta didn't like the sound of political stridency. Her face was clouding up.

"Americans used to live like that all the time! We called it

`freedom.' "

David looked dubious. " I meant, realistically speaking the global information structure ... " He let Loretta grip his fingers and tried to shush her.

"I'm saying we need to pull the masks off and tackle our problems head-on," Arbright said. "Okay, Singapore's a pariah state, they just trashed their rivals-fine. Let 'em pay the price for aggression."

"Singapore?" David said. "You think Singapore is the

F.A.C.T?"

Arbright leaned back in her seat and looked at all three of them. "Well. I see the Rizome contingent has another opin- ion." A dangerous lightness in her voice.

Laura had heard that tone before. During interviews, just before Arbright was about to nail some poor bastard.

The baby wailed aloud.

"Don't all speak up at once," Arbright said.

"How do you know it's Singapore?" Laura said.

"How? Okay. I'll tell you." Arbright shoved her makeup cabinet shut with the toe of her Italian boot. "I know it because the pirate databanks in Singapore are full of it.

Y'know, we journos-we need a place to trade information, where Vienna can't get on our case. That's why every damned one of us worth his salt is a data pirate."

"Oh ...

"And they're laughing about it in Singapore. Bragging.

It's all over the boards." She looked at them. "All right. I've told you. Now you tell me.''

Emily spoke up. "The F.A.C.T. is the secret police of the

Republic of Mali."

"Not that again," Arbright said, crestfallen. "Look, you hear ugly rumors about Mali all the time. It's nothing new.

Mali's a starvation regime, full of mercenaries, and their reputation stinks. But they wouldn't dare try a stunt as huge and flagrant as FACT's attack on Grenada. Mali, defying Vienna with an international terror atrocity? It doesn't make sense."

"Why not?" Laura said.

"Because Vienna could knock over Mali tomorrow-there's nothing to stop them. Another coup in Africa wouldn't even make the midnight news. If FACT were Mali, Vienna would've wiped them out long ago. But Singapore-well! Have you ever seen Singapore?"

"No, but-"

"Singapore hates Grenada. And they loathe Vienna. They hate the whole idea of a global political order-unless they're running it. They're fast and strong and reckless, and they've got a lot of nerve. They make those little Grenadian Rastas look like Bill Cosby."

"Who?" David broke in. "You mean 'Bing' Cosby?"

Arbright stared at him for a moment. "You're not really black, are you? Either that, or that's not really your baby, fella."

"Huh?" David said. "Actually, uh, there's this, uh, sun- tan lotion...."

Arbright cut the air with her hand. "It's okay, I've been to

Africa, and they tell me I look French. But Mali-that's just disinformation. They've got no money and no motive, and it's an old rumor...." The limo came to a stop and inter- rupted her.

"Oxford Towers, Miss Arbright. "

"That's our stop," Emily said, putting her drink aside.

"We'll get back to you, Dianne."

Arbright sagged back into the cushions. "Look. I want those Grenada. tapes. "

"I know.'

"And they won't be worth as much if Vienna makes a major move. That'll crowd everything else off the wires."

"Car, open the door." Emily got out. Laura and David hustled after her. "Thanks for the lift, Dianne."

"Stay in touch." The limo's doors slammed.

The bottom floor of Oxford Towers was a minor city.

Healthy-looking fake sunlight poured from fluorescents over the little gourmet groceries and discreet boutiques. Private security dressed like Keystone Kops, cute tall hats and brass- buttoned coats. Meek-looking teenagers on recliner bikes cruised the pastel storefronts.

They ducked into a grocery for diapers and baby food and put it on Emily's card. They joined a group of two dozen bored tenants waiting on curved hardwood benches. An ele- vator arrived, and everyone shuffled aboard it and took a pew. Floors zipped past in ghastly mag-lev silence with only the occasional sniffle or rustle of newsprint.

They got off on Emily's floor and their ears popped. The air smelled just the least bit fried and stuffy here, fifty floors up. Arcane color-coded maps on the walls. They caught a hall bus. Crabbed little nooks and crannies branched off, leading into patios-what the sociologists called "defensible space."

Emily led them off the bus and up a nook. A security mouse scuttled along the floor-nasty-looking little microbot with fretted eyes and a muzzle clotted with dirt. Emily carded the door open.

Three-room place-stark Art Deco black-and-white. David took the baby into the bathroom, while Emily stepped into the little open kitchen. "Wow," Laura said. "You sure have changed the place."

"This isn't mine," Emily said. "It's Arthur's. You know, the photographer."

"That guy you were dating?" The walls were hung with

Arthur's blowups: moody landscape studies, bare trees, a round-faced model in Garbo black-and-white with a cat-eating- cream look on her face... "Whoa," Laura half laughed, pointing. "That's you! Hey! Nice."

"You like it?" Emily said. "Me too. Almost unretouched- okay, a little digitizer work." She peered into the freezer.

"We got chicken almondine-catfish-Rajaratnam's Ready-

2-Eat Lamb Curry ... "

"Something bland and American," Laura suggested. "Last thing I heard you and Arthur were on the outs.

"Now we're on the very heavy ins," Emily said smugly.

"Sorry the food's not better, but Arthur and I, we don't do much cooking in here.... Y'know, they got my place staked out, but it's eight floors down-and in a rat nest like Oxford

Towers, that might as well be in Dallas.... This place is as good a safehouse as anywhere. Arthur's cool about it-I think he's a little thrilled by all the hubbub, actually." She grinned.

"I'm his mystery woman."

"Do I get to meet him?"

"He's out of town right now, but I hope so." Emily slotted trays into the microwave. "I have a lot of hopes these days.... I'm thinking maybe I finally got it figured. The method of modem romance."

Laura laughed. "Yeah?"

"Better living through chemistry," Emily said, and blushed.

"Romance. Did I tell you about it?"

"Oh, Em, no." Laura reached into her jeans pocket, past a wad of change and some salted airline peanuts. "You mean these?"

Emily stared at the plastic vial. "Jesus! You mean you walked through Customs with a pocketful of Red-Hots?"

Laura winced. "They're not illegal, are they? I forgot all about them."

"Where'd you get 'em?"

"In Grenada. From a hooker."

Emily's jaw dropped. "Is this the Laura Webster I know?

You're not high on those, are you?"

"Well, have you been taking them?"

"Just a couple of times... . Can I see that?" Emily shook the little vial. "Boy, these look like megadosage.... I dunno,

I took 'em, they kind of made an idiot of me.... I guess you'd say I went crawling back to Arthur, after that fight we had, but it seemed to do us both good. I mean, maybe it's wrong to be too proud. Take one of those, and it makes the other stuff, the problems, feel kind of pointless.... You and

David aren't having trouble, are you?"

"No ... " Laura hedged. David emerged from the bath- room carrying the freshly changed baby. Emily quickly swept the vial into a kitchen drawer.

"What's up?" David said. "You two have that in-joke look again."

"Just saying how y'all have changed," Emily told him.

"You know something, Dave? Black suits you. You look really good."

"I put on some weight in Grenada," David said.

"On you it looks fine."

He half smiled. "That's it, flatter the moron.... You two talking company politics, right? Might as well let me hear the worst." He sat on a black-and-chrome counter stool. "As- suming it's safe to talk in here... "

"Everyone's talking about y'all," Emily, said. "You Web- sters earned beaucoup brownie points on this one."

"Good. Maybe we can coast a little now."

"I dunno," Emily said. "Frankly, you're gonna be in pretty heavy demand. The Committee wants you for a council session.

You're our situation experts now! And then there's Singapore.

"The hell," David said.

"Singapore's Parliament is holding open hearings on their data-haven policy. Suvendra's there right now. She's been our contact with the Islamic Bank, and she's going to testify."

Emily paused. "It's kind of complicated."

"Suvendra can handle that," David said.

"Sure," Emily said, "but if she handles it really well, her

Committee election's a shoe-in. "

David's eyes widened. "Wait a minute-"

"You don't know how this has been playing Stateside,"

Emily told him. "A month ago it was a side show, but now it's a major crisis. You heard how Dianne Arbright was talking. A month ago a top-rank journo like Arbright wouldn't have given me the time of day, but now suddenly we're sisters, very heavy solidarity." Emily held up two fingers.

"Something's gonna give, and soon. You can smell it com- ing. It's gonna be like Paris '68, or early Gorbachev. But global." She was serious. "And we can be right on top of it. "

"We can be six feet fucking under it!" David shouted.

"What are you up to? You been talking to those crackpots from Kymera?"

Emily flinched. "Kymera ... That corpocracy stuff doesn't cut much ice with us, but it sure bears watching.... Vienna's acting screwy."

"Vienna knows what it's doing," David said.

"Maybe, but is it what we want?" Emily pulled plates and plasticware. "I think Vienna's waiting. They're gonna let it get bad this time-until somebody, somewhere, gives them political carte blanche. To clean house, globally. A new world order, and a new world army."

"I don't like it," David said.

"It's what we have now, but without the ratholes."

"I like ratholes."

"In that case, you'd better go talk some sense to Singa- pore." The microwave dinged. "It's only for a few days,

David. And Singapore's got a real government, not some goofy criminal front like Grenada's. Your testimony to their

Parliament could make a major difference in their policy.

Suvendra says-"

David's face turned leaden. "We're gonna get killed," he said. "Don't you understand that yet? All the little ratholes are gonna be battle zones. There are people out there who would kill us for nothing at all, and if they can kill us for profit, they're thrilled! And they know who we are, that's what scares me. We're valuable now...."

He rubbed his stubbled cheek. "We're getting the hell out of here, into a Lodge or a Retreat, and if you want to take care of Singapore, Emily, well, call Vienna and finance

Rizome's Fightin' Armor Division. 'Cause they mean busi- ness these pirates and we're never gonna sweet-talk 'em into anything! Not till we put a tank on every fucking street comer! Until we find the sons-of-bitches who pressed the buttons that killed those drowned little kids in Grenada. But not my kid! Never again!"

Laura punctured the foil over her steaming chicken almondine.

She felt no appetite. Those drowned bodies ... stiff and dead and moving on dark currents ... dark currents of rage. "He's right," she said. "Not my Loretta. But one of us has to go.

To Singapore."

David gaped. "Why?"

"Because we're needed there, that's why. Because it has what we want," she said. "Power to control our own lives.

And the real answers.' The truth!"

David stared at her. "The truth. You think you can get it?

You think you're that important?"

"I'm not important," Laura said. "I know I'm nothing much now-the sort of person who gets pushed around, insulted, and has her house shot up. But I might make myself important, if I worked at it. It could happen. If Suvendra needs me, I'm going."

"You don't even know Suvendra!"

'I know she's Rizome, and I know she's fighting for us.

We can't turn our backs on an associate. And whoever shot up our Lodge is going to pay for it."

The baby started to whimper. David slumped in his chair.

He spoke very quietly. "What about us, Laura-you and me and Loretta? You could die over there. "

"This isn't just for the company-it's for us! Running away can't make us safe."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" David said. "Stand on the dock and blow kisses? While you sail off to make the world safe for democracy?"

"So what? Women always did that in wartime!" Laura struggled to lower her voice. "You're needed here anyway, to counsel the Committee. I'll go to Singapore."

"I don't want you to go." He was trying to be curt and tough, lay it down in front of Emily like an ultimatum, but all the force was out of it. He was afraid for her, and it was half a plea.

"I'll come back and I'll be fine," she said. The words sounded like a reassurance, instead of a refusal. But he wasn't any less hurt.

Taut silence. Emily looked wretched. "Maybe this isn't the time to talk about it. You've both been under a lot of strain.

No one says you're acting non-R."

"They wouldn't have to say it," Laura said. "We know how to feel it without any words."

David spoke up. "You're going to do it no matter what I say to you, aren't you.

It was no use hesitating now. Better to get it over with.

"Yes. I have to," she told him. "It's gotten to me now. It's inside me, David. I've seen too much of it. If I don't work through this somehow, I'll never really sleep again."

"Well," he said. "Then it's no use arguing, is it? This is where I beat you into submission, or threaten divorce." He got off his barstool, jerkily,, and began pacing. Wired with tension, his feet stuffing the carpet. Somehow she forced herself to stay quiet and let him struggle with himself.

At last he spoke aloud. "I guess we're in the thick of it now, whether we like it or not. Hell, for all we know, half of

Rizome's on some terrorists' hit list, just because we took a stand. If we cower to criminals, we'll never live it down.

He stopped and looked at her.

She'd won. She felt her face, set stiff and stubbornly, break into a smile. Helpless and radiant, a smile for him. She was very proud of him. Proud just because of what he was; and proud, too, that Emily had seen it.

He sat on his barstool again and locked eyes with her.

"But you're not going," he told her. "I am."

She took his hand and looked at it, held it in her fingers.

Good, strong, warm hand. "That's not how it works with us," she told him gently. "You're the idea man, David. I'm the one who hustles people."

"Let me get shot," he said. "I couldn't stand it if anything happened to you. I mean that."

She hugged him hard. "Nothing will happen, sweetheart.

I'll just do the goddamned job. And I'll come back. Covered with glory."

He broke away from her, got to his feet. "You won't even give me that much, will you?" He headed for the door. "I'm going out."

Emily opened her mouth. Laura grabbed her arm. David left the apartment.

"Let him go," Laura said. "He's like that when we fight.

He needs it."

"I'm sorry," she said.

Laura felt close to tears. "It's been real bad for us. All that time online. He has to blow off some steam."

"You're just jet-lagged. And Net-burned. I'll get you some

Kleenex. "

"I'm better with him, usually." She forced a smile. "But right now I'm on-rag."

"Oh, gosh." Emily gave her a tissue. "No wonder."

"Sorry."

Emily touched her shoulder gently. "I always hassle you with my problems; Laura. But you never lean on me. Always so controlled. Everyone says so." She hesitated. "You and

David need some time together."

"We'll have all the time in the world when I get back."

"Maybe you ought to think it over."

"It's no use, Emily. We can't get away from it." She wiped her eyes. "It was something Stubbs told me, before they killed him. One world means there's no place to hide."

She shook her head, tossed her hair back, forced the sting in her eyes to fade. "Hell, Singapore's just a phone call away.

I'll call David from there every day. Make it up to him."

Singapore.