Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net

He kept after her. "It's no use even trying. The Net will never run this tape, Laura. News services never run tapes of terrorist hostages. Except for Vienna, who knows it's true, everyone will think it's wild bullshit. That you're speaking under duress, or that the whole thing is bogus."

"You took tape of that nuclear test site, didn't you?" she said. "You can tag it on to my statement. Let's see 'em refute that one!"

"I'll do that, certainly-but they could refute it anyway."

"You've heard my story," she told him. "I made you believe it, didn't I? It happened, Gresham. It's the truth."

"I know it is." He handed her a leather canteen.

"I can do it," she told him, feeling brittle. "Tackle the world. Not just some little corner of-it, but the whole great grinding mass of it. I know I can do it. I'm good at it."

"Vienna will step on it."

"It's gonna step on Vienna." She squeezed a stream of canteen water into her mouth and shoved the makeup kit out of camera range. She set the canteen by her knee.

"It's too big for me to hold anymore," she said. "I've got to tell it. Now. That's all I know." At the sight of the camera, something was rising up within her, adrenaline-wild and strong. Electric. All that fear and weirdness and pain, packed down in an iron casing. "Put me on tape, Gresham.

I'm ready. Go."

"You're on."

She looked into the world's glass eye. "My name is Laura

Day Webster. I'm gonna start with what happened to me on the Ali Khamenei out of Singapore ... "

She became pure glass, a conduit. No script, she was winging it, but it came out pure and strong. Like it would carry her forever. The truth, pouring through.

Gresham interrupted her with questions. He had a prepared list of them. Sharp, to the point. It was like he was stabbing her. It should have hurt, but it only broke open the flow. She reached some level that she'd never touched before. An ec- stasy, pure fluid art. Possession.

She couldn't keep that edge. It was timeless while she had it, but then she could feel it go. She was hoarse and she began stumbling a little. Sliding off at the edges, passion slipping into babble.

"That's it," he said at last.

"Repeat the question?"

"I don't have any more. That's it. It's over." He shut off the camera.

"Oh." She wiped her palms on the carpet, absently.

Drenched. "How long was it?"

"You talked for ninety minutes. I think I can edit it down to an hour."

Ninety minutes. It had felt like ten. "How was I?"

"Amazing." He was respectful. "That business when they buzzed the camp-that's the sort of thing nobody could fake."

She was puzzled. "What?

"You know. When the jets came over just now." He stared at her. "Jets. The Malians just buzzed the camp."

"I didn't even hear it."

"Well, you looked up, Laura. And you waited. Then you went right on talking."

"The demon had me," she said. "I don't even know what the hell I said." She touched her cheek. It came away black with mascara. Of course-she'd been weeping. "I've run my makeup all over my goddamn face! And you let me."

"Cinema verite," he said. "It's real. Raw and teal. Like a live grenade."

"Then throw it," she told him. Giddily. She let herself go and fell back where she sat. Her head hit a buried rock under the carpet, but the dull jolt of pain seemed a central part of the experience.

"I didn't know it would be like this," he said. There was real fear in his voice. It was as if, for the first time, he had realized he had something to lose. "It might just happen-it could get loose in the Net. People might really believe it."

He shifted uneasily where he sat. "I've gotta figure the angles first. What if Vienna falls? That would be great, but they might just reform and come back with bigger teeth this time. In which case I've fucked myself and everything I've tried to create here. Crap like that can happen, when you throw live grenades."

"It has to get loose," she said passionately. "It will get loose, sometime. FACT knows, Vienna knows, maybe even governments.... A secret this huge is bound to come out, sooner or later. It's not just our doing. We just happen to be the people on the spot."

"I like that line of reasoning, Laura. It'll sound good if they catch us."

"That doesn't matter. Anyway, they can't touch us, if everybody learns the truth! Come on, Gresham! You've got goddamn satellites, think of a way to get through, damn it!"

He sighed. "I already have," he said. He got to his feet and walked past her, unrolling a spool of cable. After a moment she rose on one elbow and looked out the triangular pie slice of door, after him. It was late afternoon now, and the Tuaregs were throwing two of the domes onto their backs.

Yawning teacup mouths open to the dry Saharan sky.

Gresham came back. He looked down at her as she sprawled on the carpet, breathing. "You okay?"

"I'm hollow. Eviscerated. Absolved."

"Yeah," he said. "You talked just like that, the whole time." He sat cross-legged before his console and typed away, carefully.

Minutes passed.

A woman's voice erupted from the console.

"Attention North Africa broadcast source, latitude eighteen degrees, ten minutes, fifteen seconds; longitude five degrees, ten minutes, eighteen seconds. You are broadcasting on a frequency reserved for the International Communications Con- vention for military use. You are advised to desist at once."

Gresham cleared his throat. "Is Vassily there?"

"Vassily?"

"Yeah. Da."

"Da, okay, looking good, hold on, please."

Moments later a man's voice came on. His English wasn't as good as the woman's. "Is Jonathan, right?"

"Yeah. How's it goin'?"

"Very well, Jonathan! You are receiving the tapes I sent?"

"Yes, Vassily, thank you, spaseba, you're very generous.

As always. I have something very special for you. this time."

The voice was cautious. "Very special, Jonathan?"

"Vassily, this is an item beyond price. Unobtainable elsewhere. "

Unhappy silence. "I must ask, can it wait for our next pass over your area. We are having small docking problem here at the moment. Very small docking problem."

"I really think you'd better give this one your immediate attention, Vassily."

"Very well. I will key in scrambler." Moment's wait.

"Ready for transmission."

Gresham tapped his console. High-pitched whir. He leaned back, turning to Laura. "This'll take a while. The scramblers are kind of clunky up on old Gorbachev Memorial."

"That was the Russian space station?"

"Yeah." Gresham rubbed his hands briskly. "Things are looking up."

"You just sent our tape to a cosmonaut?"

"Yeah." He tucked in his legs, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'll tell you what I think might happen. They're gonna look at it up there. They're gonna think it's craziness-at first. But they may believe it. And if they do, they won't be able to hold it back. Because the consequences are just too extreme.

"So-they'll pipe it down to Moscow, and that other place, Star City. And the ground teams will look it over, and the apparatchiks. And they'll copy it. Not because they think there ought to be a lot of copies, but because it needs study.

And they're gonna start shipping it all around. To Vienna first, of course, because their people are all over Vienna. But to the rest of the Socialist bloc, too-just in case ..."

He yawned into his fist. "And then those guys on the station are going to realize they've got the publicity coup of a lifetime.

And if anyone's willing to fool with it, they are. I've got a lot of contacts, here and there, but they're the craziest bastards I know! Five will get you ten, they start dumping it, direct broadcast. If they can get permission from Star City. Or maybe even without permission."