Charles Stross - Rule 34

Two black-suited fellows from the presidential security detachment are waiting for you in the lobby. Four more stand on the sidewalk by the beetle-shiny armoured Mercedes. They see you safely on board, and seconds later you’re slamming through the deserted predawn boulevards of the capital in the middle of a convoy of armed pick-up trucks, blue lights flickering off the concrete frontages to either side, your armed guards scanning for threats with gunsight eyes.

The American has weaselled his way into your entourage again. (Let him have his illusory privilege of access: It’s so much easier to keep an eye on him when he thinks he’s keeping an eye on you .) He’s sitting in the middle jump-seat opposite, clutching his pad in both hands like a determined chipmunk who refuses to give up his nut. “What is it this time?” you ask, staring pointedly at him.

“It’s the exchange rate.” Blue fireflies flicker and gleam inside his rimless glasses. “All it takes is a two-point fluctuation, and we lose a hundred million on the exchanges.” He doesn’t smile. How long is it since you could always tell an American by their smile? Good dentistry is expensive: Flashing bright teeth in these straitened times is like wearing a jacket that says MUG ME. “Can you talk him out of it?”

You suppress a sigh. “You seem to think Bhaskar is a tame bullock, to be herded this way and that. He isn’t, and if you persist in this mode of thinking, he will give you a nasty surprise.”

The American’s lips curl. “Who’s running this, you or the Operation?” he asks. “Without our collateral, you’d be—”

You smile without showing your teeth. He stops chittering, gratifyingly fast. Chipmunk-American has seen a pit viper. “We are duly grateful to our investors . Nevertheless, you will refrain from discussing the First Citizen in language more appropriate to cattle. Without his continuing patronage, your operation is nothing . We are not stupid, Mr. White. If you didn’t need our special expertise, you wouldn’t be engaged in this joint venture with, ah, those ‘crazy Kyrgyz.’”

It’s hard to tell if Mr. White blanches in the strobing glow of the street-lamps and the blue LEDs of the lead escort, but your choice of words echoes his own language. Stupid little geek probably imagines you’ve cracked the encryption on his secure VoIP link, forgetting who owns all the bandwidth in and out of both countries—both Kyrgyzstan and the recession-hit sock puppet in the East that he’s using for his little logistics operation. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Leave Bhaskar to me,” you reassure him. “And leave the currency-stabilization talks alone. Your concerns are noted, and I agree—it would be absolutely deplorable to lose a hundred million euros of your money through inattention. Nevertheless, attempting to micromanage the First Citizen would be unwise. Trust me on this: I’ve known him for more than forty years.” Since you were both in the Young Pioneers together, back in the dog days of the Soviet Union.

You consider saying more to the creep, promising a little something to sweeten the deal and keep suckering him in, but at that point the convoy slows, and the car turns sharply, nosing over a recessed barrier and down a steep ramp into an underground security check-point and parking garage. It’s under the back of the New Wing, across the street from the White House—Bhaskar’s office and bachelor pad, a hideous lump of white marble that looks like a tax office fucking an airport terminal.

You leave the Operation’s representative sitting in the limo as the guards salute and wave you forward across the crimson carpet and into the elevator with the best Korean terahertz radar and explosive sniffers hidden in its walnut-veneered walls. Then it’s into the corridor under the road, and another elevator that whisks you upstairs—then down another corridor that serves as a security firebreak for the guards on Bhaskar’s private quarters to check you out, and finally another elevator. Then the doors slide open, and you’re in Xanadu.

Xanadu is three stories high, ten metres on a side, and occupies about an eighth of the presidential palace’s floor-plan. It’s mounted on shock-absorbers driven into bed-rock and hermetically sealed from the rest of the White House by steel plates embedded in the walls: an insulated bubble of purest lunacy, the personal quarters of the First Citizen of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Whoever designed it was clearly channelling Samuel Coleridge on dodgy pharmaceuticals by way of Norman Foster rather than the ghost of Kublai Khan, but beggars—and First Citizens—can’t be choosers: It came to light after you’d finished kicking that bum Adskhan into exile in Prague. Personally, if it had been you, you’d have demolished the thing rather than sleep in it, but after the second assassination attempt, Bhaskar got the message and retreated inside his predecessor’s hermetically sealed pleasure dome.

You find him sitting in the sunken circular seat with the fish-tank floor and pink leather cushions, wearing one of those Japanese dressinggown things and looking morose. There are bags under his eyes, and he has neglected to shave. His big, bony feet splay across the glass, footprints for the rainbow carp to gape and mouth at from beneath. “Is it morning?” he asks hopefully.

“It will be, soon.” You carefully descend the steps—you’ve never trusted that glass floor not to dump you in the water—and embrace, cheek to cheek. “Are you well, brother? What’s troubling you?”

“I can’t sleep.” The First Citizen—you remember playing “tag” in the woods out behind the apartment block you both lived in—looks despondent. “The pills aren’t helping. I feel like I’m going mad at times, let me tell you. It’s this artificial light: I never see the sun these days. Bad dreams, whenever I manage to get to sleep.” He rubs his index finger alongside his crooked, slightly splayed nose.

“We should get you a woman—” You stop when you see the look in his eyes. He hasn’t been the same since Yelena died. Some men need all the women they can get, but for others, one is all they want for a lifetime. “Or a bottle of vodka? And some dirty videos. When did we last kick back with a good movie?”

Now his shoulders relax. “I’m supposed to tutor a meeting of the All-Republic Commission on Finance this afternoon,” he says quietly. “Most of those fucking peasants wouldn’t know a credit default swap if it bit them on the bell-end. And listen, they aren’t paying me to teach macroeconomics at the state academy anymore. Those bastards, if they were my students, they’d be heading for a ‘fail.’ All they can think of is lining their own pockets. What the fuck do they care about the future?”

“The committee will still be there tomorrow, and the day after,” you point out. “Send a reliable deputy…” Now you understand the expression. “What is it?”

“What indeed?” He raises an eyebrow. “It’s the future. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

“What?”

“Listen.” The First Citizen glances away. “Suppose I ordered you to arrest the American, the investment agent. No reason given, just shut his little crime syndicate down right now and bugger the big picture. Would you do it?”

“For you, boss? Of course, in a split instant.” You shrug. “Of course, it would make a real mess,” you add, conspiratorially: Subtext, you’d completely fuck over our past two years’ work.

“Right, right.” Bhaskar limply punches the open palm of his left hand, winces slightly from the carpal tunnel syndrome that’s plagued him for decades. “You’d do it, but first you make sure I am fully informed as to the consequences.” (Little does he truly appreciate the real risks involved: It’s your job to protect your unworldly genius of a childhood friend from the real-world consequences of such a whim. To ensure that when it’s time for you to bring the hammer down and Bhaskar to fix the deficit, there are no overlooked survivors with enough money to pay for assassins.) “I’m not asking you to do that. But the point is, at least I know where you stand. You’re not afraid to tell me. But those fuckers on the all-state council? That rat-bag Kurmanbek smiles like a vulture and makes nicey-nicey noises, but do you think he’d lend me a horse if my pony was lamed—”