The Unincorporated Woman Read online

  An uncomfortable silence followed on her words.

  And it was during that quiescence that in a flash Kirk knew what the message, “propose it again,” referred to. The sudden palpitations of his heart and endorphin rush to his head only acted to confirm his other lingering question: He damn well would, and more so, without a second’s hesitation. His eyes glimmered as his lips drew back into an iniquitous grin. “There is … this one idea.” The words were spoken with such mellifluence that anyone sitting at the table would have been hard-pressed to believe that they carried with them a death sentence for billions.

  * * *

  Sandra was relieved. Her initial concerns about not providing Kirk with enough information had proved unwarranted. More to the point, Sebastian had been correct. Even getting Sandra’s newly reinstituted assistant, Catalina, to drop the letter in Kirk’s seat—without him being the wiser—proved to be a breeze. The avatar had blanked the security system. Then it had been only a matter of waiting for the meeting to begin.

  Choosing Kirk as a vehicle for her machinations had been another matter entirely. She didn’t like him. But then again, not a lot of people did. Hazard of the profession, she’d concluded. The avatars, of course, were indifferent to like or dislike with regards to Kirk but were adamant in their belief that only he could act as a lever. Both their statistical and empirical evidence had been overwhelming. Sandra now knew that in order to win Justin’s war and fulfill the vow she’d made to that end, Kirk would have to be used. She also knew that based on the collected data given to her by Sebastian, the six Cabinet members now sitting before her would split their votes down the middle with Mosh, Hildegard, and Sinclair on one side and Kirk, Padamir, and Rabbi on the other. If her and Sebastian’s plan was going to work, then she would need to be the deciding vote. Heretofore unprecedented since Justin’s death.

  Mosh, looking almost bored, bade Kirk to continue. “We’re all ears.”

  And, noted Sandra, they were. Even Mosh, despite his surly response, was paying closer attention, hoping Kirk could weave something palatable out of his dark magic.

  “The best part is that it’s all ready to go.”

  “What’s ready to go?” Padamir insisted.

  Kirk was too busy talking to himself to respond to the question. He kept nodding as he worked out the plans in his head. “Could be implemented with minimal effort,” Kirk mumbled, seemingly happy to agree with himself. He then turned his focus back toward the Treasury Secretary with a look of utter condescension. “Almost was once, in fact.”

  Sandra looked over at Mosh, a move that was not conspicuous, because the rest of the Cabinet, with the exception of Tyler Sadma and Rabbi, had as well. Mosh’s face had gone ashen.

  “That was voted on and rejected by this very Cabinet,” he seethed through his clenched jaw and barely moving lips. His fingers had stopped tapping and had now formed themselves into a fist planted firmly on the table. “We will not revisit it.”

  “Why, Mosh,” chided Kirk, “congratulations on your elevation to the Presidency. Oh, that’s right, you’re not the President. And given that we’re operating under Cabinet rules agreed to by all in the absence of an effective President, no offense to our figurehead,” Kirk said with a nod to Sandra, who couldn’t help but give him a pleasant nod back, “I can propose it and I do.”

  “Only if someone else seconds your proposal,” fumed the Treasury Secretary. A dismal silence hung over the room as the Treasury Secretary’s scathing look appeared to have had its desired effect. Kirk, looking puzzled and dismayed, shook his head in disgust as a satisfied smile formed at the corners of Mosh’s mouth.

  “Damsah bend me over for this,” proclaimed Admiral Sinclair, “but I’ll second the son of a bitch.” It was hard to tell who was more shocked, Kirk or Mosh, but Sandra was too busy trying to remain outwardly calm to care.

  Fuck all, she thought. With Sinclair voting with Kirk, the motion will pass four to two and they won’t need my vote. Fucking statistical analysis! It could be weeks or months before I get this kind of shot again, and if I don’t get some real Goddamned power soon, the war could be lost.

  “Joshua,” pleaded Mosh, “it’s virtual reality.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  Sinclair met his friend’s eyes in a way that told not only Mosh but everyone else in the room that he knew a once unimaginable line had been crossed.

  “What of Justin’s words, Joshua? He convinced almost all of us that it was too evil to use. That evil hasn’t changed.”

  “I remember, old friend. But Justin’s gone, the Belt is effectively lost, and our outer planets are now vulnerable.”

  “Forgive me for interrupting,” prodded Rabbi, “but would someone mind telling me exactly what it is we’re talking about?”

  Both Mosh and Kirk now looked at Rabbi like he was an eligible bachelor and they each had five unmarried daughters. “Kirk developed a way to infect the UHF with a virtual reality plague,” informed Mosh.

  “If you’re going to tell the man, at least be honest about it,” scoffed Kirk. “The UHF has a small but growing VR problem all on its own. Tens of billons of people experiencing the despair of a destructive, never-ending, p.d.-laden war. What we’ve developed is an easily concealable, simply manufactured, oh-so-portable VR unit with an impressive assortment of programs. We’ve also cultivated contacts with certain less-than-lawful elements in the Core Worlds, all of whom will be more than willing to help us out. After all, business is,” he concluded with a knowing grin, “business.”

  “Setting up shop with that kind of filth—which, make no mistake, VR pushers are—is to spread the greatest evil humanity has ever known. Hardly the precepts by which this Outer Alliance was formed.”

  “Incorporation is the greatest evil humanity has ever known,” countered Kirk, “and make no mistake, we are the last hope our race has of erasing it.”

  Tyler Sadma, though still silent, nodded his brooding assent.

  “Incorporation is not, in and of itself, evil any more than a rail gun is evil,” countered Mosh. It was an argument he’d often made and one, judging by the dismissive looks of the Cabinet, he’d never won convincingly. “That it’s been abused by Hektor and his ilk is incontrovertible, but that doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the biojell.”

  Sandra paid only scant attention to the arguments that immediately ensued as the whole issue of incorporation and VR were once again rehashed, with even the normally taciturn Hildegard joining the fray. Sandra could only mull quietly over the inevitable outcome.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” snapped Kirk, raising his voice above the caterwauling. “I call for a vote.”

  Sandra’s face registered surprise when all heads turned in her direction. Her look then changed to one of chagrin when she realized why. She was considered so unimportant that through the silent decree of the Cabinet, she’d just been given the job of a clerk.

  “Of course,” she said as if it were perfectly normal for the President of the Outer Alliance to count votes. “Might as well make myself useful.”

  An uncomfortable spate of laughter followed her self-derogation. Sandra straightened up slightly, as if to give more import to her task. “Treasury Secretary, how do you vote?”

  Whatever contempt Mosh had left, he managed to pour into that one word. “Against.”

  “One against. Intelligence Secretary, how do you vote?”

  “For,” Kirk rejoined with equal adamancy.

  “One for, one against. Technology Secretary, what is your vote?”

  “Against,” Hildegard said with a shudder.

  “The vote is two against and one for. Defense Secretary, how do you vote?”

  A look of regret sprang into the admiral’s lowered eyes. “I can’t ask my assault miners to risk their lives if I’m not willing to risk my honor. Plus, no one’s being forced to use VR. And it’s not like we’re bombarding innocent civilians. I hate this fucking war.” He then wai
ted a brief moment, as if preparing to expel bile. “I vote yes, damn it!”

  “The vote is tied at two each. Relocation Secretary?”

  Rabbi looked up, face distraught. He made no effort to hide the tears forming in the wells of his eyes. “For those of you unfamiliar, my people have been subjected to countless acts of inhuman and unspeakable barbarism over the thousands of years of our existence. Including the deaths of millions through the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz and Treblinka. These names may mean nothing to you, but they inform every decision I make, every day of my existence. And now … now you ask that I put my imprimatur on more death, and more unspeakable horror.” Rabbi sighed heavily and ran his fingers through the thick black curls of his hair. “I can accept being defeated in war and even the loss of liberty that that would entail. But I cannot and will not accept the theft of my free will. The UHF means to unleash upon us all a psychological holocaust the likes of which I believe will destroy the very essence of man; the very essence of humanity. If we have the ability to stop that evil and we do not, then we are complicit. I do not know why God wishes us to make such abhorrent choices, but make them we must. I vote yes.”

  Mosh’s face was ashen.

  “The vote is three in favor and two against.” Sandra looked to the other end of the table at Padamir Singh. He’d always been belligerent. Had always wanted more pressing military action. His vote, both she and Sebastian had agreed, was a foregone conclusion. Her mouth twitched slightly as she sounded her own death knell. “Information Secretary, it’s your vote.”

  Padamir inhaled slightly, his clasped hands resting comfortably on the table. “I have always stressed that we should hurt the enemy any way we can. And so it would seem that now, especially now, there’d be no reason to believe I’d think any different.”

  Mosh had already turned his head away, the mere sight of his colleague and the finality of what was about to happen proving to be too much.

  “As simple as it sounds, the final arbiter for many of my toughest decisions has been my children and grandchildren. At the end of the day, could I look them in the face and honestly, without any prevarication, justify my actions? The answer to that question has rarely failed me. And though I thought I was sure which way I’d vote at the beginning of this motion, the answer I’m left with at the end surprises even me. In short, I could not justify this to my children.” Above the collective gasp, Padamir soldiered on. “In this, as in many things, Justin Cord was indeed prophetic, and therefore, I must vote no.”

  “The vote is tied at three to three.”

  Sandra used the awkward silence to exhale deeply while suppressing an almost irrepressible joy. All the while feigning absolute innocence. Maybe there is a God after all.

  “What now?” asked Hildegard.

  “It’s unprecedented,” put in Mosh, defeat no longer evident in his voice. “We just added the new Secretary.” He looked over at Rabbi. “And, well, everything was happening so fast. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe this may be the first time the Cabinet has had a serious disagreement since the former President died. Still, if we follow protocol, a tie is not a passing vote.” Mosh leaned back into his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “The motion fails.”

  Kirk was unrepentant. “Not for something as important as this, it doesn’t. We’ll bring it before the Congress.”

  Mosh snorted derisively. “Wha—?”

  “We haven’t brought anything up to Congress before,” interjected Padamir.

  “That’s because this convenient little executive authority agreement we’ve been operating under hasn’t really been tested. It’s been only a couple of months since … well, Justin’s death.”

  “Perhaps,” added Sandra, trying to sound helpful but praying she wouldn’t be, “someone would be willing to change their vote?”

  No one moved, but everyone’s eyes flittered back and forth, looking for signs of reversal. Nothing. After another moment of uncomfortable silence, Sandra decided to act. She just needed Mosh to make his last calculation and would help him along with some pressure. “Then as the vote is tied and Congressional intervention has been requested, the motion will be—”

  “Stop,” said Tyler Sadma.

  Now this should be interesting, thought Sandra.

  “You can’t bring it to Congress. Even in secret session, this issue won’t stay buried. It will be common knowledge inside of two weeks.”

  “So what if it is?” asked Kirk. “We can run our own campaign. Tell ’em we didn’t unleash the plague, only abetted it.”

  Tyler regarded him uneasily. “The public won’t know or care about your prevarications, Mr. Olmstead. All I’m saying is, if you want this to stay private, then I strongly suggest you keep it out of Congress.”

  “Well, that’s just fucking great,” Kirk retorted. “How the hell are we supposed to resolve this, then?”

  After a long and uncomfortable silence in which no one spoke for fear of tipping the already precarious balance of opinion, Tyler Sadma’s face suddenly lit up like a holo-display. He looked down towards the end of the table, slowly pointed a finger at the President and said in a voice etched with dawning awareness, “Why don’t we let her vote?”

  Triangle Office

  Sandra sat comfortably behind her desk, mulling over the meeting’s outcome. “You can come out now, Sebastian.”

  A hologram of a Roman senator appeared sitting on the couch. “How did it go?” he asked with barely contained impatience.

  “You know, I still find it difficult to believe that there are places you can’t eavesdrop in whenever you like.”

  “We are virtual intelligences, but the laws of physics still apply. If a space is sufficiently shielded, with attention paid to closing off various avenues of, as you call it, eavesdropping, we can’t hear or see a damned thing. You humans are rather paranoid, and three hundred years of incorporation and five and a half years of war have not made you less so. Quit stalling—what happened?”

  Sandra toyed with the idea of making him squirm some more, but decided against it. “I’m in.”

  “Just on tie votes or for all voting matters?” asked the avatar.

  “Full voting member of the executive,” she gushed. “They were going to just make it for tie votes, but Tyler Sadma pointed out that if the vote wasn’t going to be tied, my vote wouldn’t sway things either way and it might as well be less confusing by just giving me a full vote … plus easier to explain to the polity. At least that’s the answer they’re going to give to those worried about a titular head having too much power.”

  “So it worked out as we planned. I must admit, I had my doubts. We avatars have a saying: Predicting humans is like predicting quantum states, except that quantum states are easier.”

  “But for the fact that our Newtonian bodies are based on a subatomic structure that’s quantum based, I’d say it was pretty clever.”

  “You must be great at parties,” Sebastian offered dryly.

  “Actually, I am.” Sandra opened up a file drawer and grabbed a bottle of scotch. There was a note from Justin still affixed to it with the message, Don’t let Omad know this exists. She took out two oddly shaped glasses. Then she looked over at Sebastian and, smiling at her own foolishness, put one away. She filled her glass halfway, recorked the bottle, and replaced it in the drawer. “You’re right,” she finally said, holding up the glass for a moment. “You don’t know crap about predicting humans.”

  “I wouldn’t do—”

  Sandra downed the drink in one shot. Her face went red and twisted into paroxysms of anguish.

  “Pfffeh!” She gasped, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “What the hell was that?”

  “Aberlour a’bunadh.”

  “Abba-what?”

  “Aberlour a’bunadh. It’s Gaelic. Roughly translated, it means, ‘the origin.’ Which is rather fitting, considering you just gulped down alcohol rated at 59.5 percent … from the cask.”

 
“I did?” she exclaimed, pulling the bottle back out of the drawer and reading the fine print. “Hmm … guess I did.”

  “Had you imbibed it properly, those priceless few ounces you just quaffed would have resulted in a bouquet of flavors such as brown sugar, candied almonds, crème caramel, and my favorite, unfiltered honey.”

  “Reading up, are you?”

  “No, I’ve actually tasted it myself. Though truthfully, I prefer my scotch less peaty.”

  “You can taste?”

  “In a multitude of ways, Sandra.” On her look of confusion, Sebastian added, “The VR units. They’ve allowed us to mimic the stimulative and gastrointestinal effects of food, drink—almost every human condition, actually.”

  “Almost?”

  “There are, of course, significant differences.”

  “Like?”

  “Like food tasting better when you’re feeling depressed. Or how a drink can take the ‘edge’ off a hard day. These notions are foreign to us. Though we can simulate the human psyche, we cannot, in fact, live it. Nor, for that matter, would we want to. Our sensual experiences tend to be of a significantly heightened nature, at least by human standards.”

  “So, do you want to hear about the meeting or what?”

  “Don’t look at me. You’re the one who started this.”

  “Mea culpa.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “One last thing, though. The next time you decide to drink scotch, allow me to help you enjoy it better. It would be such a pity to waste more.”

  Sandra nodded and then got into the details.

  “Crap, it was close.”

  “How close?” asked Sebastian.

  “Sinclair voted with Kirk.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. His profile clearly shows that J.D.’s recent victory would make him feel confident about the military as opposed to Kirk’s methods for the prospects of success. Furthermore, he hates Kirk’s guts.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe your human modeling programs need to be revised.” She then mimicked Sebastian’s voice. “‘We have been observing these particular humans since they were embryos in the tank. We’ve known their every move since birth. It is not all that difficult to predict how they will react to a situation if we can control the inputs of that situation.’ Bullshit!” she finished in her own voice. “If Padamir hadn’t decided to swing on the side of his little angels, Kirk would have won without me.”