“By Valentine’s Day. Ironic isn’t it? I wonder if he didn’t choose the date deliberately.”
With a wry smile, Gabriel said, “He might have done. He’s certainly sadistic enough to take pleasure in such details.”
Which increased my worries. “So, what about the chances of Sir Thomas putting Mariko through Truth Treatment?”
“There was a chance that he might have used it straight away, but we’re sure you would have been picked up or killed if he had done. As you haven't, it's probably because loyalty, trust and honor are crucial qualities between Hawks. It's a matter of honor for him to trust you now until you prove otherwise. It would certainly risk your loyalty to him if he questioned your lover behind your back without a valid reason.”
“What about Cochran next week? I doubt she's any scruples about doing a mind probe. Though I have coached Mariko in how to avoid dangerous thoughts.”
“Now you're a Hawk, you are a rival to Cochran," Gabriel said. "I think Sir Thomas would prefer to play those cards close to his chest as yet so I doubt he'll give Cochran access to Mariko. Either way, we have a bit of time to work with."
Giving a shrug, Gabriel glanced at the other conspirators and changed tack. "All right, let’s sum up where we are. Sir Thomas doesn’t yet suspect you know the truth about me, Mark. He doesn’t know where we are or who we all are, so those are things in our favor. Against us is we still don’t know anything about how to prevent the toxin from killing people and how they’re hiding it in the tags. And it looks like we’re not going to find out until the Tag Law is passed. We don’t know where Mariko is being held, and if Mark doesn’t kill someone within eight days then Mariko will probably be killed. We also have to consider that Cochran may attempt a mind probe on Mariko within the week, and that might lead to her and Mark being killed. Would you agree with that summary of where we are now?”
Gabriel sat back on the sofa and looked around the room at each of us in turn. I exhaled heavily and Maloo put his arm around my shoulder.
“Don’t ya worry, mate. Gabe’s gotta tell it like it is but we’ll fix this fucka for ya, don’t ya worry.” He looked over at Annika and said, “Pardon my French, Ms Bardsdale.”
Aniika flashed a grin at Maloo. “I don’t think that was French, Maloo, and I agree. We will fix this fucker.”
Maloo burst out with a bark of a laugh and I had to grin too.
“I’m serious,” Annika said, smiling. “I know some pretty high-level people and they would be horrified to find out this is going on. They’d move fast to stop it too.”
I looked at her and said, “I’m pretty sure that Sir Thomas has got Secretary General Deng, either with him or being manipulated by him. That’s high-level. Without evidence, rock-solid evidence, anyone going up against Sir Thomas at this point would just be putting themselves on a list for execution.”
Gabriel leant forward and picked up his wine glass. He said, “We’ll have to use every resource we’ve got in an orchestrated plan if we’re going to succeed. I think the big question we have to ask ourselves is: do we have enough to stop the Tag being voted in?”
“I don’t think that we do. Even if we exposed Sir Thomas and all of the conjecture that we have about Tag, even if Sir Thomas was out of action, Tag would still go ahead. Once the cull is completed, they’d just release Sir Thomas. The question isn’t about whether we can legally stop Tag, because let’s assume we can’t. The real question is how do we stop the cull happening and at the same time make sure it can’t ever happen? Once we’ve done that we can then work on getting rid of Sir Thomas. Or maybe if we’re lucky, we can kill two birds with one stone.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows and shrugged at me. Maloo rolled his eyes.
“OK, OK, enough with the bad puns.” Gabriel's moment of levity passed, and he shook his head. "Seriously, this guy is dangerous and clever but he’s not infallible — no one is. Enough things start going wrong and he’ll make a mistake. We just have to be there when it happens. He’ll be at his weakest when the Tag has been distributed. Once released, we can get a hold of it and set Maloo to work on it.”
I looked at Maloo. Gabriel said, “Maloo’s got a PhD in bio-engineering from Sydney uni.”
I tried to mask the surprise I felt but Maloo saw right through me. With a big grin, he said, “Had ya fooled, didn’t I, mate?”
Gabriel laughed but then his look turned somber again. “The problem with this approach is that it means we have to wait until the Tag is distributed. Which means that you and Mariko are exposed. Essentially, you have to choose whether you want Mariko or someone else to die. Unless, of course, we can locate and extract her before the 14th, which will be our primary focus.”
“I can’t put Mariko’s nor my life in front of six billion deaths. She wouldn’t want me to. I detest the thought of having to kill an innocent human to save her. I know I can do that. I’m sad to admit it, but I do. That’s just love, but what worries me is that in doing it, she will hate me forever.”
“What if the person you killed wasn’t innocent?”
The question from Marty turned the room to silence. I looked at her. She held my look and sat calmly next to Gabriel. Her legs together, leaning forward with her arms on her thighs, she stared at me under her blonde fringe. Her eyes bored into mine.
“I mean a really nasty person. Unfit to call themselves a human. That kind of non-innocent. Could you kill such a person?”
“It doesn’t matter whether the person is a bad or a good person. Under the law I believe in, they are both due the same rights as humans under the Nation’s Law. If we have failed to stop this person from committing illegal or just plain evil acts, then that is a failure of the Law and its processes, not the individual. Any other understanding leads to anarchy or vigilante mob justice.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. I’m not talking about theories, I’m talking about right now. A particular person and whether you want to save Mariko or not.”
Gabriel put a hand on her arm. “Maybe we’ll come back to that question later. I have an idea which I’d like to run by you. Something I’ve been toying with for a while now and I’d like to get your opinion on it. OK, here goes. What if we delete all identity records? Everyone’s PUI. Gone in an instant?”
Marty shook her head and said, “Shrouded in the heaviest of security and even if you get through that, there are backups in several different places.”
“Yes, I know, but suppose we could do it. What do you think of the effect?” Gabriel sat back in the chair.
Annika walked to the table and held her glass out for Gabriel to refill. Once filled, she emptied half of it in a huge swallow. “You’d destroy personal wealth, contribution would cease to have a reason, and the world would sink into anarchy overnight. But apart from that I don’t see a problem with it,” she said, smacking her lips. Hand on hip she raised her glass, giving us her profile. We all burst out laughing.
“OK, to be a little less extreme," Gabriel said. "The Tag has to be controlled with a command that would be uploaded to it. This would release the toxin. To do that selectively, you have to match serial numbers of Tags distributed with names of people distributed to. Makes sense right?” He wasn’t expecting an answer. “Right. So we need to find those two lists and once the product has been released, destroy the lists of serial numbers or randomize it. Because if we can’t do that then our last recourse is to delete everyone’s identity. And Annika, I agree with your evaluation of what would happen, but that’s still better than six billion dead. Right?”
“Yes, you’re right,” I responded. “How much time do you think we have after the Tag Law has been passed?”
“I’d estimate no more than two weeks. By that time I reckon they’ll come up with something to force the issue. It looks to me like the Hawks have achieved enough insiders in the UN and in the Security Council to manipulate a crisis and get people to inject the Tag quickly. So yes, about ten to fourteen days tops.”