Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net

"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."