Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [102]
‘This is beginning to get severely under my nails,’ Kohn said.
‘What can we do about it?’
‘Don’t know. Ah, fuck it…kill them at the first opportunity.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Way I see it,’ Kohn said, ‘there’s no way whoever’s in that tuna-tin are terrs. Not their style, you know? They go for dispersed forces, raids, guerilla tactics. The military – UK or SD – would go for roadblocks, flagdowns. Tailing, now, that’s cop MO. Using a civilian car isn’t, especially one so obvious. That smells of political police. Or Stasis.’
‘The Men In Black.’ Janis shivered. ‘Wonder why they do that – the suits, the cars?’
‘Checked it out once,’ Kohn said. ‘It’s a fear thing. They were set up years ago when there was that big panic about, I don’t know, messages from space getting into the datasphere and churning out copies of alien software that would take over the world. Remember the TV shows? The Andromeda Strangers. Night of the Living Daylights. Nah, just after the war. Before your time.’
‘After my bedtime.’
‘Looking back now, I’ll bet they planted these stories. Anything to keep people worried about dangerous technologies falling into the wrong hands, and not worried about whose hands it was in already.’
‘You know,’ Janis said thoughtfully, ‘people used to talk about the Breakthrough, the Singularity, when all the technological trends would take off and the whole world would change: AI, nanotech, cell repair, uploading our minds into better bodies and living forever, yay! And it always almost happens but never quite: we get closer and closer but never get there. Maybe we never get there because we’re being stopped.’
‘Stopped by Stasis…and by Space Defense enforcing arms control…yeah, that’s how it works: software cop, hardware cop!’
‘Yes, let’s kill them,’ Janis said fiercely. ‘They’re a waste of space.’
‘Soon be dark,’ Kohn said.
Another border: Cumbria. Another armful of fine work taken from the back of the truck. Tax-in-kind: with most of the economy over the event horizon of cryptography, it was the only way to collect if the owners hadn’t cut a deal and let the state have the code keys. Tax-in-kind went all the way from roadblock rip-offs to US/UN sanctions where entire buildings, warehouses, factories were seized. Usually the owners agreed to operate in the open, where at least you knew the percentages. Except in Norlonto, of course: there they hid their money and handed over the goods at gunpoint if they had to.
At least so far no one had searched the truck. There was an etiquette to those matters, and transaction costs.
After a bit Kohn glanced at the fuel gauge and said, ‘Time to pull in. Could do with a stretch, anyway. Next service area.’
‘What about—?’ Janis jerked her head backwards.
‘We’ll see what they do,’ Kohn sighed.
‘Then kill them?’
‘You’re getting into this, aren’t you?’
The twilight became darkness the instant the truck glided into the halogen floods of the service area. Janis envied Kohn his glades. She could see the writing scribed on the sidepiece nearest her: mil spec 00543/09008. Kohn first drove to the refuelling points, paying cash for diesel oil and charged-up power cells, which were swapped for the spent ones.
‘That’s exactly what I need to do,’ Janis said.
‘Well, they don’t give part-exchange for body waste,’ Kohn said. ‘Recycling hasn’t gone that far.’ He restarted the truck and moved it around to the parking bays.
‘Our friends are just over there,’ he said, pointing to the far corner of the car park where she couldn’t see a thing. ‘Still sitting in the car. Probably don’t eat or shit, just need an oil-change every ten thousand klicks.’
‘I wish I had military specs,’ Janis said. She didn’t understand Kohn’s hoot of laughter,