Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

“No, come take my seat,” Mikodez said. They’d done this before and he was certain that Intelligence and Accounting’s division heads could tell them apart, but it was good to keep them guessing. “Run the meeting. I’ll take notes. Also, I have some other things to keep my eyes on, so I won’t be able to give my full concentration to the meeting.”

“Why show up at all?” Istradez wondered.

“Because if we’re both here they’ll figure there’s a higher chance one of us is real.” Mikodez had two other doubles, one of whom was still in physical therapy after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt during his last assignment. The man had so far refused to retire, but Mikodez thought it was only a matter of time. The other one was attending a conference.

“You could hole up in your bedroom and sip plum wine before taking a—” Istradez’s eyes narrowed. “When’s the last time you slept, Mikodez? I bet you missed chatting with our nephew, too. If I’d known, I’d have gone to see Niath myself so he doesn’t get lonely.”

Mikodez had to ask the augment how long it had been. “Two days and three hours and change.”

Istradez moaned and put his head in his hands. “I am the worst little sibling ever. Go to bed .”

“I can sleep after the meeting.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Miki? You know that Shenner”—that was the head of Intelligence—“always makes the meetings run over by an hour. If not more.”

The problem with Shuos heads of Intelligence was that they, with some cause, conceived of themselves as occupying the high rung on the ladder. Certain Shuos heads of Intelligence took this as license to go into threat analyses in exhaustive detail even when theoretically confined to twenty minutes.

“Yes,” Mikodez said, looking wistfully at the cookies that he shouldn’t eat because he should leave them for Istradez so he could get into the role. “My hints to Shenner get less and less subtle, but for someone who’s ordinarily so astute at picking up on cues, she’s proved remarkably oblivious.”

“Oblivious my ass. Shenner likes the sound of her own voice. It’s going to take a direct reprimand to get her to shape up. You should let me give it if you’re squeamish. And it’s not like you to be squeamish.”

“Well, then her voice will make an excellent lullaby. No one will be surprised to see you sleeping in the corner after last night’s excesses.”

“They weren’t that excessive.”

“Besides,” Mikodez said, “Shenner has a very touchy ego. Which makes it difficult to suggest that she get some more therapy for it. The problem is, she’s obsessive, paranoid, and loyal, all of which make her excellent at her job—and all of which mean that I have to handle her very delicately. Best to leave things as they are.”

“If you say so,” Istradez said, sounding unconvinced. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the corner seat. Mikodez took it, and Istradez lowered himself into the customary hexarch’s seat. “Dare I ask what you’re working on, anyway?”

“Best if you don’t know.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Istradez looked pensive. “Because someone has to.” Then, with an effort, he straightened and eyed the cookies. “Couldn’t you do something to reduce the size of these damn platters? It’s getting harder and harder to choke all this stuff down without getting fat.”

“Your metabolism’s even faster than mine is,” Mikodez said unsympathetically, “it’s just that you put less junk in your system.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Oh, look, it’s almost time for the meeting,” Mikodez said, just to annoy Istradez, although they had a good fourteen minutes left and no one ever arrived more than six minutes early.

“If you don’t spend part of Shenner’s inevitable rant about the inadequacy of our data-processing throughput catching up on sleep,” Istradez said, “I shall ruin your reputation by flirting with Accounting.” Accounting was run by a married individual who got a body mod every three months like clockwork, according to whatever was in fashion with the Andan. Some of the fashions were extremely distracting, like the thankfully brief period when the high diplomats had gone around sporting neck-frills. Otherwise, Accounting was staid and conservative, and entirely modest about what went on in the bedroom. “I bet I could get them to stray.”

Mikodez yawned pointedly and curled up in his chair, slate tucked under his arm.

Eight minutes later, the door opened, but it was only a servitor come to clear Mikodez’s tray. Mikodez had only eaten half the ration bar, but he only ever ate half, so it knew to take the dish away. As for other food, the conference table was already home to two lavish plates of cookies and pastries (mostly for Mikodez, who had never met a sweet he didn’t like), seasoned rare meats cut up into slivers and stuck with absurdly decorative gold-toned toothpicks, spring rolls, slices of crisp fruit. Mikodez believed that no one thought well on an empty stomach, so while people were certainly welcome to eat before they came to meetings, he made sure they could fill up during them if they chose to.

A minute after that, the division heads filed in one by one. Mikodez’s eyes were closed, but he listened to the exchange of greetings. Istradez would be smiling at each person individually because that was what Mikodez himself did.

For a while Mikodez followed the threads of his people’s interactions. Shenner’s voice was more shrill than usual. She despised the Hafn not because she’d lost family to them but because she had once met a Hafn aristocrat and he had commented disparagingly about her accent speaking in his language. Shenner was vain about her language skills. Fortunately, Accounting interrupted what could have been a lengthy diatribe. In the early days, Mikodez would debrief with Istradez after meetings, pointing out things he would have done differently. These days that was rarely necessary.

While he didn’t feel drowsy in the slightest, Mikodez’s mind felt fuzzy. The medications hadn’t kicked in yet. Medical didn’t like the number of drugs he was abusing. He could tell because instead of lecturing him about it (ineffectual), every single one of the courtesans he saw was painstakingly and consistently polite about how he needed artificial assistance to do his job (also ineffectual, but at least it saved everyone the arguments). While sex didn’t interest Mikodez, he believed firmly that all of his people should talk to trained conversationalists/therapists on a regular basis. He did not exclude himself from this requirement.

Idly, Mikodez brought up a puzzle on his slate and began playing it. It wasn’t a cover for anything. A cadet had designed it during the academy’s games competition several years ago, and it had been one of the top entries in its category. Mikodez liked the game not for its originality but for its ability to numb his brain. It involved pattern-matching, music (piped in through his augment, although this made it difficult to follow the meeting at the same time), and just enough randomness to make it a challenge. Right now Mikodez couldn’t score points to save his life, which confirmed his decision to hand off the meeting to Istradez. He hadn’t asked Medical whether the game was a reasonable test of his cognitive function, but he didn’t need to.

Partway through an impassioned speech by Propaganda on how the Andan were botching the media fallout by allowing the broadcast of dramas about Jedao portraying him in a favorable light, the drug hit Mikodez. It was as though all the lights in the room had sparked brighter. Istradez glanced at him very briefly. He knew. Instead of drawing attention to Mikodez, Istradez instead pointed out that they were going to have to offer the Andan incentives to step on the dramas. Unfortunately, the Andan liked profit as much as anyone else. The dramas had to be making them a lot of money just now.