Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

their own name, not that of the ReUN. They remained dangerously
autonomous.
    At ground level all sorts of local balances hadbeen tilted,
almost entirely by the rapid re-evaluations of the real weight on
the various sides that the bloody flurries of actual combat had
induced. Disputes had been resolved or reopened, entire armies
had mobilised or disbanded on the strength of the gigantic
shadows thrown on the screens of analysis by the small
engagements in the field.
    ‘God,’ said Myra disgustedly. ‘This is so
decadent.’ It reminded her of the Renaissance mercenaries
that Machiavelli had moaned about in the Discourses, working out who would have won if they’d fought and abiding
by that decision like gentlemen, while omitting the bloody
business of actual battle. ‘Nobody wants a real fight,
they’d rather follow the sims. Talk about the pornography
of violence. Wankers.’
    ‘It’s worse than that,’ Denis said coarsely.
‘We’re fucked.’ He threw a projection of a
time-slice from Jane’s and laser-pointed the
relevant areas. ‘Look.’
    The ISTWR’s military profile and general credibility was
no longer something that cautious strategists, estimating from
past actions and present rumour, rated highly. It was
negligible.
    ‘We’ve been found out,’ said Denis Gubanov.
‘In exactly the wrong way. They must have always reckoned
with at least the possibility that we had nukes. Mutual
Protection – or Reid, anyway – knew we had them.
Point is, we didn’t use them, so it’s assumed we
either don’t have them or don’t have the stomach to
use them. We’ve gone from being Upper Volta with nukes to
being Upper Volta without. And the weapons we did use
didn’t work.’
    ‘They worked -’ Valentina began, rather
defensively.
    ‘Huh!’ Myra snorted. ‘They worked just fine,
onlythey didn’t destroy the targets. Yeah, I can see that
doing our deterrence posture a power of good.’
    The hotline phone – a solid, old-fashioned, unambiguous
red phone on Myra’s desk – began to ring. She looked
at it doubtfully for a moment, then shrugged and picked it
up.
    ‘Myra Godwin-Davidova.’
    Pause.
    ‘Hello, Myra. Dave here.’
    She gave him a moment of nonplussed silence.
    ‘Myra? It’s David Reid:
    Tes. Hello,’ she said. ‘What do you want
now?’
    There was a second’s delay in his reply.
    ‘What do you want, is more like it.’ Even over the
crackly laser-to-landline link, she could hear his fury.
‘You had the whole situation in the balance, you know that?
You had the fucking casting vote, Chairman Davidova! You
had the nuclear option, and you threw it away! I’d almost
rather you had used your goddamn nukes against us – at
least that way the Security Council would have had control, and
would’ve had to take responsibility. There’d be some
chance of an end to the chaos, which is all we really wanted. As
it is you’ve turned what should’ve been the endgame
into another fucking stalemate.’
    ‘I don’t see how that makes you any worse
off.’
    She heard a knocking noise and realised after a moment that he
was banging something on his head.
    ‘It’s made us all worse off! It’s
like entropy, Myra, can’t you see that? Everybody’s
climbed up a few flights, escalated, that’s the
fucking word for it. We’re all higher up but relatively
we’re no better placed, and we’ve lost energy, wasted
work in the process. And you know the only people who’ll
gain from that? The marginals, the fucking barb, that’s
who.
    Including your local godless communists.’
    ‘It’s you who should have thought of that. Before
you launched your bloody coup.’
    Reid took a deep breath, a long sigh down the wire.
    ‘Yeah, you’re right. It is my fault. Didn’t
expect a counter-coup, that’s all.’
    ‘What counter-coup?’
    Again the odd delay.
    ‘Don’t play the innocent. Somebody’s taken
over most of the battle-sats, and it sure wasn’t my lot.
Nor the UN’s, come to that.’
    ‘You don’t know who it was?’
    ‘No. So who was it? You must know.’
    Myra thought about this. Ah, hell, he’d find out
anyway.
    ‘The Fourth International,’ she told him.
‘Space fraction, mil org.’
    A second ticked past, then she heard Reid’s loud laugh.
‘Ha-ha-ha! OK, Myra, be like that. I’ll find out
anyway. Meanwhile, take a look at the northeastern border, and
see if it all still seems so funny. I’m well out of