Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

The construct triangulated his
apparent position, saw the joke and smiled.
    ‘What can I do for you, Myra?’
    Tell me what you think of the General.’ She wasn’t
bothered by appearing to talk to empty air; she wasn’t the
only person in that cafe area consulting a familiar or a
fetch.
    ‘That is a tricky one,’ said Parvus. He ran his
fingers through his thatch, rummaged in his crumpled jacket for
cigarettes. Lit up and relaxed; the addictive personality was
part of the package, an aspect of how the thing hung together.
‘There are of course rumours – ’ dismissive
smoketrail ‘ – that the FI has long had access to a
rogue AI. Or the other way round, according to its
opponents.’ Parvus showed his teeth. ‘It goes back to
when AIs of that sophistication were rare – before the
Revolution, or the Singularity.’
    ‘This is the Singularity?’ It was Myra’s
turn to wave a cigarette. ‘Not like you’d
notice.’
    ‘It’s one of these things you don’t notice,
when you’re in the middle of it,’ agreed Parvus.
‘Like the mass extinction event that’s going on
around us right now.’
    ‘But that’s slow, that’s the point. The
Singularity’ssupposed to be fast on something more than a
geological scale.’
    ‘It was.’
    ‘Oh.’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to take
this discussion any further. ‘Anyway, back to the General,
and what you make of him.’
    ‘Ah, yes. Well. Very dangerous, in my opinion. His use
of face and voice is remarkably effective at getting under the
skin of… people with skin. Count yourself lucky he
can’t use pheromones, at least not over the net’
    ‘You’re impervious to his charm yourself, I take
it’
    ‘Yes,’ Parvus sighed. ‘Fortunately for me, I
lack self-awareness.’
    Myra was still gaping at her familiar’s unexpected
remark – surely ironic, though she wasn’t sure on
what level – when Parvus’s place was occupied by a
Kazakh man with smooth clothes and a lined face. He had a
distracting small child in tow, and a silently accusing
puffy-eyed woman behind him. The woman took another chair, held
the squirming toddler in her lap.
    Myra blinked Parvus out of her sight, vaguely hoping that the
AI wasn’t offended, raised her eyeband and smiled at the
man and his family. His returning smile was forced.
    ‘Good morning, Madame President. Why are you leaving
us?’
    Myra looked around. Nobody else seemed to have noticed her.
The cult of personality was another strategic omission from their
socialist democracy. Just as well – she didn’t want
to be mobbed on her departure. ‘I’m not leaving
you,’ she said earnestly, leaning forward and speaking as
though confidentially. Her mission had not yet been publicly
announced, but she had no objection to starting a truthful rumour
in advance. Only the details were sensitive, and at that level
secrecy was pointless – she was confident that her full
itinerary was already circulating the nets, buried among hundreds
of spurious versions, all of equally authoritative provenance.
I’m going to the West, to get help. Economic and military
assistance.’
    The man looked sceptical. ‘Against the Sheeni-sov? But
we haven’t a chance, against them. We have no defensible
borders.’
    ‘No, but Kazakhstan has – and it’s on behalf
of Kazakhstan that I’m going.’
    Tor Chingiz?’ The man’s face brightened; he
glanced at his wife, as though to cheer her up. ‘So we are
going to drive the Reds out of Semey?’
    ‘We can’t bomb Semey,’ Myra said, repeating
exactly President Suleimanyov’s words to her. ‘But we
can hold the pass east of Lake Zaysan, and we can stop any
further advance in the north-east. If we get help soon. The SSU
forces are unlikely to try anything for some weeks, because
they’re stretched. And they don’t like frontal
fighting. As long as the Kazakhstani Republic stays hostile to
them, they won’t come in.’ She grinned encouragingly.
‘And I can be sure our own republic will stay
hostile.’
    She was not sure at all. There was enough social discontent,
understandable enough, in her redundant workers’ state for
the Sino-Soviets to work on. No doubt the first agitators were
already drifting in, among the first refugees from Semipalatinsk.
But the man took her words to heart.
    Tes,’ he said, adding, ‘if Allah wills. But we are
leaving, with all we have.’
    ‘I can’t blame you,’ Myra said.