‘You want deep or flat?’ Julie asked, jolting me out of a fascinating, spinning thread of argument from one of the Yorkshire mini-states.
‘Flat.’ I never could stand the hassle of gloves, goggles, and gear – the way I saw it, if you were going to kit yourself out like that you might as well be getting into some good healthy perversion instead of the inside of a computer.
‘OK, putting you through now.’
The newsgroup discussion (and its almost equally intriguing accompaniment of cartoon characters – smileys, they were called – who pulled faces, gestured obscenely or rolled about laughing in the margins, in a graphic gloss on the main debate) flicked away and a video link cut in.
Flakey reception; scratches like an old movie (the cryptography had been lifted that minute from a campus freeware board in North Carolina, according to its indignant, jumping-up-and-down copyleft demon in the corner) and voice quality like a badly dubbed Iranian skinflick, but there was no doubt who was on the other end.
‘Well, hello there Jon.’
‘Hi, Dave. Didn’t expect to be speaking to you.’
(‘You know this guy?’ Julie hissed.)
Dave coughed. ‘I hired out a few squads for, uh, technical work in the current operation, and for some time I’ve had a good business relationship with our friends to the North.’
I understood what he meant but it seemed unnecessarily oblique. I gave him what I hoped came across as a dirty look.
‘You worried about the crypto, or something? I mean, it was your lot who picked it.’
‘No, no.’ Dave nodded as if past my shoulder. ‘Just – who’s that lassie on the bench behind you?’
‘Uh?’ I looked back. Julie was leaning forward over hillocks of skirt, her neat boots dangling below, like a doll on a shelf.
‘Watch your lip, man, that’s Julie O’Brien.’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Reid said. ‘Didn’t recognise you.’
‘That’s all right,’ Julie said. ‘And you can speak freely.’ Probably flattered at being called a lassie, I thought dourly.
‘OK,’ said Reid. He relaxed. ‘Fact is, Jon, I’ve been working with the ANR for years, and I’ve spent the past few weeks brokering deals with defence companies in your neck of the woods.’
‘Yeah, well I had noticed combat futures were up.’
Reid grinned. ‘Aye, and you can use them to leverage insurance…’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Great fun, of course, but now that we’ve squared everything with the road owners and cop-cos we need to deal with the Movement militia. Politics, not business. They thought I was the right person to talk to you.’
‘Given our deep personal trust.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Are you really launching an offensive tomorrow?’
Reid grinned. ‘I can’t say. We intend to, but we haven’t got all the bugs out of our system yet.’
The ANR was alleged to have inherited some diabolically clever military software from the old Republic, though if its previous failed offensives were anything to go by it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
‘Why are you posting a timetable of where you intend to hit? Most strategists still rate the advantage of surprise, last I heard.’
‘I’m told it’s a humanitarian measure,’ Reid chuckled. ‘It lets the civilians get out of the way.’
‘And clogs the roads with refugees and gives the mini-state militias every excuse for calling in sick tomorrow morning?’
‘Like I said –’
‘– Humanitarian. OK. Business. What’s the deal with Norlonto?’
‘We know your militia won’t fight for the Kingdom,’ Reid said slowly, ‘and we don’t expect you to fight for the Republic. All donations gratefully received, of course, but that’s by the way. The main thing is, we don’t want anybody thinking we’re invading you if we happen to, uh, pass through in large tracked vehicles.’
‘I can see how that might be misunderstood,’ I said. (Julie, behind me, snorted.) ‘What guarantee do we have that you aren’t gonna just stomp on us?’
‘Apart from my solemn word?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Apart from that.’
‘It’s not in our interests. We’ve nothing against Norlonto. Some of the little Free States will have to be cleaned up, but you’re not on the list.’
Fucking great. ‘OK, how about this. ANR shelling and rocketing of Norlonto stops right now. Your troops can pass through, but they can’t stay and they especially can’t launch any attacks on the Hanoverians from positions inside Norlonto, even with the landowners’ permission.’
‘That’ll do,’ Reid said.
‘That breaks the Settlement,’ Julie said, as if this point had just occurred to her.
‘Indeed it does,’ Reid said drily. ‘So just on the off-chance that we lose this round, I suggest that Jon makes this deal known over your heads. All those who did accept the Settlement resign their posts in disgust, and Jon takes over for the next day or two.’
‘What!’ Julie and I said at the same moment.
‘Sure,’ Reid went on imperturbably. ‘Make him dictator or something. That way, he can give the orders to the militia and take the rap if we go down. You can always shoot him afterwards if we win and he shows too much attachment to the job, but I’m sure that won’t be necessary.’
‘You’re asking a lot,’ I said. ‘If you lose, I’ll swing for it.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Reid said airily. ‘If we lose it’ll be because the Yanks come in, and then you’ll die anyway.’
‘Doesn’t that apply to the rest of us?’ Julie asked. ‘I mean, why bother with –?’ She waved her hand.
‘Dear citizen,’ Reid said with feigned patience, ‘the Yanks have a list. He’s on it, and you’re not.’
‘Well,’ I said after this reassurance had sunk in, ‘how can I refuse?’
‘Good man,’ said Reid. ‘I hope I see you again.’
‘So do I, mate,’ I said. ‘So do I.’
The following day the ANR offensive started (Bang On Schedule! as the Sun-Times noon edition put it) but stalled and fell back before the day was over. There’s a story that this was down to some kind of software problem, but it’s hard to credit. I think the general strikes and local insurrections that broke out at the same time had a lot more to do with it. Fortunately, over the next few days this civilian uprising carried the revolution to victory. When it became obvious that America too was on strike and the troops weren’t coming, the Restored Hanoverian government departed ignominiously in helicopters to ‘continue the struggle against terrorism from exile’, as they put it.
The fall of the US/UN has been similarly attributed, in the sort of conspiracy theories I once thought I’d exploded forever, to an engineered viral assault on the global information nets. But a moment’s objective thought will show that the insurrections in Britain and Siberia, concurrent with an escalating arms-control dispute with Japan, were what finally convinced the American people that world domination wasn’t worth yet another tax hike and draft call-up. Copycat insurrections, as they were called, spread around the globe with the speed of an Internet rumour. The disruption associated with what amounted to a world revolution is, in my view, a more than adequate explanation for the chaotic state of everybody’s computer screens over the next few months.
At the time I had more pressing matters to attend to, like trying to figure out a way of losing my new job without handing it to somebody worse. I should have known better than to become a dictator in the first place, but that’s anarchism for you. It’s just no preparation for the responsibilities of government.