“We’ve been watching you,” said the shadowy figure behind her. “I assure you we know what you’re capable of.” The pistol was in her back again and he was pushing her hard enough that she had trouble keeping her feet. Angrily she hurried ahead and emerged onto the iron plating next to the water. “I didn’t know I had this,” she commented as she turned right, toward the source of the light.
“It’s not yours, this is part of the municipal water supply,” said a half-familiar voice up ahead.
She eyed the black depths. Jump in? There might be a culvert she could swim through, the way heroes did in romance novels. Those heroes never drowned in the dark, though, and besides even if she made it out of here her appearance, soaking wet, in the streets of the city was bound to cause a scandal. She did not need that right now.
There was an open area at the far end of the tank. The same tables and crates she’d seen in the wine cellar were set up here, and the same young revolutionaries were sitting on them. Standing next to a lantern-lit desk was the youth with straight black hair and oval eyes. He was dressed in the long coat and tails she’d seen fashionable men wearing on the streets of the wheel; with his arms crossed the coat belled out enough for her to see the two pistols holstered at his waist. She was suddenly reminded of Garth’s apparel, which was like a down-at-heel version of the same costume.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she snapped, even as she counted people and exits (there was one of the latter, a closed iron door). “You’re not being very neighborly,” she added more softly.
“Sit her down and tie her up,” said the black-haired youth. He had a high tenor voice, not unmanly but refined, his words very precise. His eyes were gray and cold.
“Yes, Bryce.” The man who’d led her here sat her down on a stout wooden chair next to the table, and pulling her arms back proceeded to tie a clumsy knot around her wrists.
Venera craned her neck to look back. “You obviously don’t do this much,” she said. Then, spearing this Bryce fellow with a sharp eye, she added, “Kidnapping is precision work. You people don’t strike me as being organized enough to pull it off.”
Bryce’s eyebrows shot up, that same look of surprise he’d shown in the cellar. “If you’d been following our escapades you’d know what we’re capable of.”
“Bombing innocent crowds, yes,” she said acidly. “Hero’s work, that.”
He shrugged, but looked uncomfortable. “That one was meant for the council members,” he admitted. “It fell back and killed the man who threw it. That was a soldier’s death.”
She nodded. “Like most soldiers’ deaths, painfully unnecessary. What do you want?”
Bryce spun another chair around and sat down in it, folding his arms over its back. “We intend to bring down the great nations,” he said simply.
Venera considered how to reply. After a moment she said, “How can kidnapping me get you any closer to doing that? I’m an outsider, I’m sure nobody cares much whether I live or die. And nobody will ransom me.”
“True,” he agreed with a shrug. “But if you go missing, you’ll soon be declared a fraud and the title to Buridan will go up for grabs. It’ll be a free-for-all, and we intend to make sure that it starts a civil war.”
As plans went, it struck Venera as eminently practical—but this was not a good time to be smiling and nodding.
She thought for a while. All she could hear was the slow drip drip of water from rusted ceiling pipes; doubtless no one would hear any cries for help. “I suppose you’ve been following my story,” she said eventually. “Do you believe that I’m Amandera Thrace-Guiles, heir of Buridan?”
He waved a hand negligently. “Couldn’t care less. Actually, I think you are an imposter, but why does it matter? You’ll soon be out of the picture.”
“But what if I am an imposter?” She watched his face closely as she spoke. “Where do you suppose I came from?”
Now he looked puzzled. “Here… but your accent is foreign. Are you from outside Spyre?”
She nodded. “Outside Spyre, and consequently I have no loyalty for any of the factions here. But I do have one thing—I’ve come into a great deal of money and influence, using my own wits.”
He leaned back, laughing. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “That you’re a sympathizer? More like an opportunist; so why should I have anything but contempt for that?”
“Because this power… is only a means to an end,” she said. “I’m not interested in who governs or even who ends up with the money I’ve gained. I have my own agenda.”
He snorted. “How vague and intriguing. Well, I’m sure I can’t help you with this ill-defined ‘agenda.’ We’re only interested in people who believe. People who know that there’s another way to govern than the tyrannies we have here. I’m talking about emergent government, which you as a barbarian have probably never even heard of.”
“Emergent?” Now it was Venera’s turn to be startled. “That’s just a myth. Government emerging spontaneously as a property of people’s interactions… it doesn’t work.”
“Oh, but it does.” He fished inside his jacket and came out with a small, heavily worn black book. “This is the proof. And the key to bringing it back.” He held the book up for her to see; with her limited mobility, Venera could just make out the title: Rights Currencies, 29th Edition.
“It’s the manual,” he said. “The original manual, taken from the secret libraries of one of the great nations. This book explains how currency-based emergent government works, and provides an example.” He opened the book and withdrew several tightly folded bills. These he unfolded on the table where she could see them. “People have always had codes of conduct,” said Bryce as he stared lovingly at the money, “but they were originally put together hit or miss, with anecdotal evidence to back them up, and using armies and policemen to enforce them. This is a system based on the human habit of buying and selling—only you can’t use this money to buy things. Each bill stands for a particular right.”
She leaned over to see. One pink rectangle had the word JUDGEMENT printed on it above two columns of tiny words. “The text shows which other bills you can trade this one for,” said Bryce helpfully. “On the flip side is a description of what you can do if you’ve got it. This one lets you try court cases if you’ve also got some other types of bill, but you have to trade this one to judge a trial. The idea is you can only sell it to someone who doesn’t have the correct combination to judge and hopefully whoever they sell it to sells it back to you. So the system’s not static, it has to be sustained through continual transactions.”
She looked at another bill. It said GET OUT OF JAIL FREE. The book Bryce was holding, if it was genuine, was priceless. People had been looking for these lost principles for longer than they’d been trying to find the last key to Candesce. Venera had never believed they really existed.
Pointedly, she shrugged. “So?”
The young revolutionary snatched up the bills. “Currencies like this can’t just be made,” he proclaimed, exhibiting a certain youthful zeal that she would have found endearing in other circumstances. “The rights, the classifications, number of denominations, who you can trade to—all of those details have to be calculated with the use of massive simulations of whole human societies. Simulate the society in a computing machine, and test different interactions… then compile a list of ratios and relations between the bills. Put them in circulation, and an ordered society emerges from the transactions—without institutions getting in the way. Simple.”