Scale, p.22
Scale, page 22
He stood in the courtyard, in a spot with a clear view of the entrance where he was sure he’d seen Shane taken inside. There was an armed guard stationed there; when he noticed Jake watching, he looked more puzzled than hostile, as if Jake had to be part of some extra security detail that no one had mentioned to him. The clothes again? Jake wished he’d known the secret power of his apparel earlier; he might have been able to bluff his way right into the Town Hall prison to confirm Shane’s presence, even if it would have been too much to hope for to bring him out.
Maybe he could still extract some advantage from it, before every last Spotlight employee knew what he’d done. He glanced at his watch, then furrowed his brow and called to the guard worriedly, “Any outbound cargo in the last few seconds?” He wasn’t close enough to show identification, and shouting pass phrases back and forth in public was probably discouraged.
The guard called back, “No, only the—” then caught himself and motioned to Jake to approach.
Jake complied.
The guard said, “Sorry, I should check your ... ”
Jake nodded and took out his wallet, hoping the guard might keep talking while he searched for his Spotlight ID. But the man waited in silence.
Jake sighed. “I must have left it in the base.”
The guard raised his rifle.
“Calm down,” Jake suggested. “They took the kid away, didn’t they? You might as well tell me, because the police are going to be asking the same thing any second now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jake said, “Would you stop pointing that thing at me? You’re just attracting attention.” Passersby were staring, and one woman was standing watching them while she made a call on her phone.
The guard lowered the barrel. “Just fuck off and stop nosing around.”
Jake said, “Sorry, but I’ve been deputised to watch this entrance. I don’t have any choice, even if I’m too late.”
The guard laughed. “I know you. You used to work for Palimpsest.”
A police officer approached them. “What’s happening here?” he asked Jake.
Jake explained what Sergeant Benson was doing, and what she’d asked him to do. The officer turned to the guard.
“Do you know anything about this missing boy?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Someone called us saying you pointed your gun at this man.”
The guard hesitated. “I did, I’m sorry. It was a misunderstanding.” Every word was scrupulously polite, but the expression on his face promised a time when he wouldn’t need to apologize to anyone.
The officer did not seem cowed, but he didn’t push the matter any further. “I’ll watch the entrance,” he told Jake.
“Thank you. But you don’t mind if I stick around?”
“Of course not.”
The officer spoke on his phone, then the three of them stood in silence. Jake felt his stomach tightening. If the vote was for independence, would the police be disbanded completely? Or maybe the senior officers would be replaced by President Beech’s hand-picked appointees, and Spotlight would be empowered to remake the organization in its own image.
Jake saw Elaine approaching. “He wasn’t in there!” she announced miserably.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “They must have moved him again, before we got here.”
Benson joined them. “You didn’t see anything?” she asked Jake.
“No, but I’m sure our friend here did.” He nodded toward the guard.
Benson approached the man, and showed him the photograph of Shane. “Have you seen this boy, entering or leaving this building?”
“No.”
Jake said, “Picture him in shackles, with a hood on.”
Benson turned to him and raised a hand for silence. “Has anyone left through this entrance, since you started your shift?” she pressed the guard.
“No.”
Benson recorded the guard’s details in her notebook, and spoke with the other officer.
“I don’t think we can do anything else here,” she told Elaine. “It sounds like a case of mistaken identity.”
Jake looked to Elaine; if she wanted him to come clean with the whole backstory, now would be the time, but she showed no sign of having changed her mind. Jake was no longer sure what his obligations were; all the hijackers ought to be judged by a court, and the kidnappers too, but he was rapidly losing confidence that anything he did could even nudge the outcome in that direction.
Elaine said listlessly, “Thanks for trying.”
As she walked away, Jake went after her. “They have to bring Shane into the public eye, eventually,” he said. “That’s the whole plan: to have him testify to discredit the navy.”
“But you said he wouldn’t actually do it,” Elaine replied. “He only went along with the plan because you told him you’d get him out of their hands before it came to that.”
“Yes, but he’s not an idiot. He’ll keep telling them that he’ll do what they want, right up until the moment they put him on stage. We just have to be there, to make sure he gets away from them safely when he goes back on his word.”
“Who is this ‘we’?” Elaine retorted. “You and whose army?”
Jake was about to reply that they could surely arrange for at least one police officer to be present. It shouldn’t take more than one, if the law still counted for anything. But how brazen might the law-breakers be, as their ascendancy to power grew closer?
“The audience,” he said. “We need to get as many of them on our side as possible.”
Chapter 35
Jake spread the photographs of the rabbits out across Mandy Sayles’ desk.
“How do I know these aren’t faked?” she asked.
“I can show you the negatives,” he offered.
“That doesn’t prove anything. You could still have done some kind of camera trick.”
“What would count as proof, then? Do you want me to go back down there and smuggle out some Scale Seven rabbits, so you can see them for yourself?”
Sayles hesitated, long enough to make it clear that if this was possible, it really would have been her preference. Jake said, “If you publish the story, maybe G8 will invite you down for a tour of the place.”
“With some complimentary rabbit stew for lunch?” she joked.
“The last thing the people I met there would want to do is get rid of these animals.” Jake picked up one of the photographs. “Come on, you know these are genuine. Get an expert to examine them, if you like, but why not give me the benefit of the doubt for now?”
Sayles said, “Your whole story is ridiculous. You bluffed your way down there, by pretending that Spotlight had hired you ... when they actually hadn’t?”
“There’s more to it than that,” Jake admitted. “But I’m obliged by my client to withhold some of the details. You respect your sources’ confidentiality, don’t you? I have the same kind of responsibilities.”
Sayles grimaced, sympathetic but unswayed. “If I publish a story, asking the readers to trust me that I really did speak to an anonymous source, that’s one thing. But if that source asked me to trust him that events he can’t tell me about led him to a place I can’t visit ... ”
“I get it,” Jake said. “But you have the photos, and you have my account of them. However skeptical you want to be, are you really willing to ignore this completely?”
Sayles took the photograph from his hand. “They told you they did this with a virus?”
“Yes.”
“Which doesn’t work for people?”
“No. But they’re still hoping to find the one that did it for us, however long ago that happened. And the scientist I spoke to certainly welcomed the idea of using it again, deliberately: larger scale people having smaller scale offspring, born via animal surrogates.”
Sayles said, “If I ask Generation Eight to comment on these claims, what do you think they’ll say?”
Jake shrugged. “They could deny it all. Or they could confirm it all but insist that it has nothing to do with people.”
“But you accept that, don’t you?”
“I have no reason to believe they’ve done anything with people yet,” Jake confirmed. “But I still think people deserve to know what they are doing. It’s not a question of cross-scale biology being some kind of forbidden knowledge that no one should even try to understand. But if they’re doing nothing wrong, why not do it out in the open, instead of hiding it all away at the bottom of the river?”
“Because they think people will jump to the wrong conclusion?” Sayles suggested. “Assume it’s all aimed toward human applications, when it isn’t.”
Jake said, “The woman I spoke to ... ”
“One person, fantasizing about the far future,” Sayles countered.
“A couple of years isn’t the far future, if you’re Scale One,” Jake replied. “Don’t they have a right to care about things that might happen then – even if you and I can just laugh it off?”
Sayles regarded him skeptically. “So is that why you’re so keen to see this published? Your deep empathy for the larger scales?”
“If it affects how the larger scales see us, and act toward us, it’s as much self interest as empathy,” Jake argued.
“If I publish this, they’ll see us badly.”
Jake shook his head. “If you publish this, maybe we’ll have a chance to take steps that stop them from seeing us so badly. If we can get our own house in order, they might stop sending in soldiers and ... ” He caught himself just in time to keep from adding hijacking submarines.
“I have a pretty good sense of when I’m being used for an agenda,” Sayles informed him.
“Good for you. Because I certainly am using you; I’m telling you what I found precisely because I think that will lead to a better outcome than keeping it secret. Or do you only trust leaks from people who are convinced that they’ll be helping to make the world worse?”
Sayles looked down at the photographs. “I’m going to need to have these checked out properly. But for now, let’s go over your story again, from the beginning.” She opened her notebook and picked up a pen.
Jake said, “I tried to join Spotlight, and they turned me down. But then someone hired me, for a job I can’t tell you about, and I ended up in the base at the bottom of the river.”
Chapter 36
Loretta had felt fine when she left her apartment, but now the sight of the crowd flowing past her into the Town Hall made her want to turn and flee. All these people had their own ideas and convictions; what made her imagine that anything she could say would sway them? “Is it too late to back out?” she wondered.
“That’s just last-second nerves,” Chandra assured her. “It’s natural to feel that way.”
“If you’re so calm, do you want to take over from me?” Loretta wasn’t being sarcastic; it was a genuine offer.
Genevieve said, “We all agreed that you have the best presentation. And if you can survive the four of us picking you to pieces, Beech should be like a Scale Zero rain shower.”
“But it feels like a trap,” Loretta replied. “Beech never wanted a debate before. When they added our option to the ballot, she made it sound like it was beneath her contempt.”
“She’s under pressure now,” Pablo suggested. “The journalists have been digging away at all the secret deals with G8 and Spotlight. The blockade is starting to bite, but she’s afraid to start an all-out war in case that turns the voters against her. So she wants a chance to give another rousing speech on how the wonders of lepton engineering are at risk of being snatched out of our hands. As far as she’s concerned, you’re only here to give people a reason to show up and listen to her – but that doesn’t mean that the people themselves will actually ignore you.”
“Maybe.” Loretta looked to the crowd again, trying to take some comfort from the notion that Beech faced as much of a struggle to influence anyone as she did.
As she scanned the throng, she noticed Jake standing at the edge of the courtyard, talking to an anxious-looking woman, apparently trying to reassure her about something. Loretta hadn’t spoken to him since the soldiers’ incursion; it was hard enough facing Dahlia’s antipathy without having yet another voice telling her that all her efforts were misguided.
“We should go in,” Stephen urged her.
“All right.”
As they entered the hall, Loretta saw a device with a glass screen at the back of the stage. The screen was blank, but it appeared to be a much larger version of the gadget she’d seen at the exhibition, displaying Orphan Jane and her skipping rope. “What’s that for?”
“A reminder of what’s at stake, maybe,” Genevieve guessed. “We might have to choose between running out of food and launching an attack on D6, but ... think of the movies!”
There were five seats reserved in the front row for all the members of the Third Option team; Loretta was glad she wouldn’t have to wait backstage, rubbing shoulders with the Mayor’s people. Ishaq Afridi and his “No” team were beside them, but the two factions had made a kind of peace with each other, even as they’d declined the opportunity for any strategic deal. An unconditional commitment to remain a part of Stedland was a genuinely distinct alternative to a negotiated settlement, and it was only fair that the proponents of both sides put their best case to the voters.
“How many guns do they need to ‘keep us safe’?” Genevieve asked acerbically.
Loretta followed her gaze to two Spotlight goons standing in a corner. “It’s more theater, I suppose. They want to keep reminding the audience about the incursion.”
“There won’t be another incursion,” Genevieve predicted. “They’ll just starve us into submission, or aggression. But they won’t bother marching in again.”
Linda Soames, the journalist that the three teams had agreed on as moderator, walked onto the stage. “Welcome everyone,” she began. “With voting in the referendum on the future of District Seven due to commence in ten minutes, this might well be the last chance we have to hear the arguments in favor of each of the choices. We all know how much is at stake now, so I’ll spare you my thoughts on the gravity of the situation and the responsibility we’re facing. Instead, please join me in inviting Mr. Afridi to the stage, to make the case for a ‘no’ vote.”
There was polite applause from across the hall, and a couple of shouts of encouragement, but no jeering. Loretta was heartened; at least this chance for all sides to be heard on an equal footing meant that no one should feel disenfranchised. She just hoped the mood of civility could persist all the way to the vote and beyond; the only thing worse than open conflict with the rest of the country would be the district tearing itself apart.
Afridi adjusted the microphone, loosening the top of the stand and sliding it higher. He spoke softly, but his amplified words were clear.
“Stedland was formed two hundred and sixty-three years ago – not in an act of war or conquest, but in an act of recognition that the thirty-nine cities of this region that had been most peaceful and prosperous were those where the scales lived together in close proximity, making the most of each other’s complementary talents.
“At that time, there were still disputes and tensions within each city, skirmishes over boundaries and headaches over jurisdiction. And even the simplest journey between cities – let alone any enterprise requiring the transport of goods – was like stepping into quicksand. Who knew how the laws and customs would change as you traveled across the region, or as one generation succeeded the next? But with the Treaty of Holroyd, every district of the thirty-nine cities agreed to surrender a degree of autonomy in order to harmonize the rules that governed them, and bring certainty to their lives.
“Who can doubt that this project was a grand success? Its fame was such that people migrated to Stedland from across the globe, even those who could only begin a journey that their children or grandchildren completed. Eventually, many other nations were born the same way, while experiments with separatism failed, over and over again.
“Do the Scale Seven people of Stedland suffer under a yoke of oppression imposed by our larger, slower-moving cousins? I do not believe that for a moment. Rather, we benefit from the stability that arises from the shared governance by all seven scales.
“Will this new technology of lepton engineering be stifled, if it’s developed under the laws and customs of Stedland – rather than some new jurisdiction invented on the spot to make room for the possibilities it offers? People have raised all manner of spectres, from bureaucratic inertia to the threat of generators repurposed as bombs, but we already have the laws and procedures in place that would ease the way for the safest, most beneficial applications, while forbidding dangerous misuse.
“Will Scale Seven move ahead with this technology faster and more eagerly than the other scales? Of course we will, just as we have with so many other innovations. But to claim that we could do this even faster on our own is like imagining our hearts beating faster if we ripped them from our bodies. We depend on the country as a whole to support us, to feed us, to steady us, even as we do the same for our neighbors. To separate ourselves from the people and institutions that have made our lives better for hundreds of generations would be an act of self-mutilation, as much as an act of hostility and ingratitude to the nation as a whole. That is why I am asking you to vote ‘no.’”
As Afridi stepped back from the microphone, there was a stronger response than when he’d appeared, with more enthusiasm from his supporters, but Loretta could hear some cynical groans as well. Genevieve turned to her and whispered encouragingly, “This is good, you can build on this!”
