Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [132]
Cat appeared at his elbow.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Not too bad.’
A strange face appeared on the screen – gaunt, unshaven, red-eyed, talking hoarsely about the iniquities of the Free State system: ‘…you may be free to leave, but if you are systematically denied any accurate information about what you might find if you do leave, what freedom is that? We need to break down the walls…’
It was only the words that he recognized as his own.
‘Hey, that’s good,’ Cat was saying.
‘Good goddess.’ Jordan waved the sound down. ‘Do I look like that? I’m a bloody disgrace.’
‘No,’ Cat said. ‘You’re not.’ She reached over and brought up the source of the segment, a Cable station in the Midlands. ‘See, you’re getting picked up—’ She hit a search sequence, showing a tree diagram of the groups and channels that had taken up something Jordan had said or written – an impressive structure, visibly growing at the tips.
‘I don’t get it,’ Jordan said. ‘Nobody’s ever heard of me.’
‘That’s the point.’ Cat sat up on the bench and looked down at him, layers of her dress fluttering in the inadequate draughts from the machinery’s fans. ‘Street-cred. You even look like a refugee from some godawful repressive mini-state.’
Jordan smiled sourly. ‘That’s what I am.’
‘Exactly,’ Cat said. ‘You’ll see. What you got on the politics?’
Jordan stared at the screen, unseeing again. ‘The Left Alliance is churning it out; still nothing from the ANR; space-movement politicos are arguing like, well, you’d expect; Wilde’s made some cryptic remarks that suggest he’s negotiating with the ANR…’
‘That reactionary old bastard?’ Catherin snorted. ‘Moh used to rate him.’
‘Yeah, well so do I.’
‘Might’ve known,’ Catherin said. She gave a not unfriendly smile. ‘Speaking of capitalist bastards, how’s the speculation coming on?’
‘Fine,’ Jordan said. ‘We’re sterling billionaires.’
‘Ha, ha.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s all gold and guns now.’
He reached in and twitched up the FT Ten Thousand Share Index.
The market had peaked, and turned, and was dropping—
And then everything went haywire—
Twisting bands of colour, fragments of news, gabble, snow—
‘Hey, what the fuck!’ Shouts of annoyance came from the others in the room as they jacked out or pulled off glades and stood rubbing their eyes. Jordan just sat and watched it.
‘What’s happening?’
Catherin was looking from the mess on the screens and holos to his face, and back, and seeming more worried by the second.
‘It’s OK,’ Jordan said. ‘It’ll pass. It’s something I’ve seen before.’
Oh, my God, he was thinking. Moh’s done it again!
Donovan watched Bleibtreu-Fèvre stiffly descend the helicopter’s steps and limp across the landing-pad. Unlike everybody else Donovan had ever seen, the Stasis agent did not duck as he walked beneath the still-whirling blades. He ignored the rig’s various crew-members moving about their tasks, but – Donovan noticed – they did not ignore him as he came down the ladder from the helipad, using only the handrail, and walked across the sea-slicked deck with a confidence that might have been due to inexperience. As he approached the doorway Donovan saw to his disgust that the Stasis agent looked exactly the same in the flesh, if that was the word, as he had in the virtual.
‘So you blew it,’ Donovan said by way of greeting. Bleibtreu-Fèvre smiled thinly and followed him inside and down the stairladder.
‘We’ve all made mistakes,’ he acknowledged, lowering himself into a chair by a workbench. The thumping of rotor blades outside became increasingly weary, then stopped. Donovan palmed a sensor as he sat in one of his command seats. Hissing and clanking noises came from a distant corner of the vast clutter.
‘Indeed,’ Donovan said. He was beginning to regret having had anything to do with Bleibtreu-Fèvre. Airlifting him out of the dell had been a risky business, undertaken only because the operative