Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net

The Inspector of Prisons was a large smiling sunburned white American. He wore a long silk djellaba, blue suit pants, and elaborate leather sandals. He met her in an air-conditioned office downstairs, with metal chairs and a large steel desk topped with lacquered plywood. There were gold-framed portraits on the walls, men in uniform: GALTIERI, NORTH, MACARTHUR.

A goon sat Laura down in a metal folding chair in front of the desk. After sweltering days in her cell, the air condition-- ing felt arctic, and she shivered.

The goon unlatched her handcuffs. The skin below them was calloused, the left wrist had an oozing scab.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Webster," said the Inspector.

"Hello," Laura said. Her voice was rusty.

"Have some coffee. It's very good. Kenyan." The Inspec- tor slid a cup and saucer across the desk. "They had good rains this year."

Laura nodded dumbly. She picked up the coffee and sipped it. She had been eating prison fare for weeks: scop, with the occasional bowl of porridge. And drinking the harsh metallic water, two liters every day, salted, to prevent heatstroke. The hot coffee hit her mouth with an astonishing gush of richness, like Belgian chocolate. Her head swam.

"I'm the Inspector of Prisons," said the Inspector of Pris- ons. "On my usual tour of duty here, you see."

"What is this place?"

The Inspector smiled. "This is the Moussa Traore Penal

Reform Institute, in Bamako."

"What day is this?"

"It's ..." He checked his watchphone. "December 6,

2023. Wednesday."

"Do my people know I'm still alive?"

"I see you're getting right to the crux of matters," said the

Inspector languidly. "As a matter of fact, Mrs. Webster, no.

They don't know. You see, you represent a serious breach of security. It's causing us a bit of a headache."

"A bit of a headache."

"Yes.... You see, thanks to the peculiar circumstances in which we saved your life, you've learned that we possess the

Bomb."

"What? I don't understand."

He frowned slightly. "The Bomb, the atomic bomb."

"That's it?" Laura said. "You're keeping me here because of an atomic bomb?"

The frown deepened. "What's the point of this? You've been on the Thermopylae. Our ship."

"You mean the boat, the submarine?"

He stared at her. "Should I speak more clearly?"

"I'm a little confused," Laura said giddily. "I just spent three weeks in solitary." She put her cup onto the desk, carefully, hand shaking.

She paused, trying to sort her thoughts. "I don't believe you," she told him at last. "I saw a submarine, but I don't know that it's a genuine nuclear missile submarine. I have only your word for that, and the word of the crew onboard.

The more I think about it the harder it is to believe. None of the old nuclear governments were stupid enough to lose an entire submarine. Especially with nuclear missiles onboard."

"You certainly have a touching faith in governments,"

said the Inspector. "If we have the launch platform, it scarcely matters where or how we got the warheads, does it? The point is that the Vienna Convention does believe in our deterrent, and our arrangement with them requires that we keep our deterrent secret. But you know the secret, you see."

"I don't believe that the Vienna Convention would make a deal with nuclear terrorists."

"Possibly not," said the Inspector, "but we are counter- terrorists. Vienna knows very well that we are doing their own work for them. But imagine the unhappy reaction if the news spread that our Republic of Mali had become a nuclear superpower. "

"What reaction," Laura said dully.

"Well," he said, "the great unwashed, the global mob, would panic. Someone would do something rash and we would be forced to use our deterrent, unnecessarily."

"You mean explode an atomic bomb somewhere."

"We'd have no choice. Though it's not a course we would relish."

"Okay, suppose I believe you," Laura said. The coffee was hitting her now, nerving her up like fine champagne.

"How can you sit there and tell me that you would explode an atomic bomb? Can't you see that that's all out of proportion to whatever you want to. accomplish?"

The Inspector shook his head slowly. "Do you know how many people have died in Africa in the last twenty years?

Something over eighty millions. It staggers the mind, doesn't it: eighty millions. And the hell of it is that even that has barely got a handle on it: the situation is getting worse. Africa is sick, she needs major surgery. The side shows we've run in

Singapore and Grenada are like public relations events compared to what's necessary here. But without a deterrent, we won't be left alone to accomplish what's necessary."

"You mean genocide."

He shook his head ruefully, as if he'd heard it all before and expected better from her. "We want to save the African from himself. We can give these people the order they need to survive. What does Vienna offer? Nothing. Because Afri- ca's regimes are sovereign national governments, most of them Vienna signatories! Sometimes Vienna dabbles in sub- verting a particularly loathsome regime-but Vienna gives no permanent solution. The outside world has written Africa off. "

"We still send aid, don't we?"

"That only adds to the misery. It props up corruption."

Laura rubbed her sweating forehead. "I don't understand."

"It's simple. We must succeed where Vienna has failed.

Vienna did nothing about the terrorist data havens, nothing about Africa. Vienna is weak and divided. There's a new global order coming, and it's not based in obsolete national governments. It's based in modern groups like your Rizome and my Free Army."

"No one voted for you," Laura said. "You have no author- ity. You're vigilantes!"

"You're a vigilante yourself," the Inspector of Prisons said calmly. "A vigilante diplomat. Interfering with govern- ments for the sake of your multinational. We have everything in common, you see. "

"No!"

"We couldn't exist if it weren't for people like you, Mrs.

Webster. You financed us. You created us. We serve your needs." He drew a breath and smiled. "We are your sword and shield."

Laura sank back into the chair. "If we're on the same side, then why am I in your jail?"

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers. "I did tell you,

Mrs. Webster-it's for reasons of atomic security! On the other hand, we see no reason why you shouldn't contact your coworkers and loved ones. Let them know you're alive and safe and well. It would mean a great deal to them, I'm sure.

You could make a statement. "

Laura spoke numbly. She'd known something like this was coming. "What kind of statement?"

"A prepared statement, of course. We can't have you babbling our atom secrets over a live phone link to Atlanta.

But you could make a videotape. Which we would release for you. "

Her stomach roiled. "I'd have to see the statement first.

And read it. And think about it."

"You do that. Think about it." He touched his watchphone, spoke in French. "You'll let us know your decision."

Another goon arrived. He took her to a different cell. They left the handcuffs off.

Laura's new cell was the same length as the first, but it had two bunks and was a stride and a half wider. She was no longer forced to wear handcuffs. She was given her own chamber pot and a larger jug. of water. There was more scop, and the porridge was of better quality and sometimes had soybean bacon bits.

They gave her a deck of cards, and a paperback Bible that had been distributed by the Jehovah's Witness Mission of

Bamako in 1992. She asked for a pencil to make notes on her statement. She was given a child's typer with a little flip-up display screen. It typed very nicely but had no printout and couldn't be used to scribble secret messages.