Chaos Cipher (16 page)

‘
Aren’t you
trying to organise cock-fighting events, Pierce?’ Daryl’s voice
sailed.

‘
No,’ he
snapped. ‘I want to eat roosters because I’m hungry as hell for a
bit of meat and sustenance.’ Lewis turned his head back to Enaya.
‘Miss Chahuán…’ Pierce Lewis started.

‘
Enaya.’ She
corrected.

‘
-how many
years have you been serving as Coordinator now?’ he went
on.

Enaya didn’t
answer, her eyes remained locked, unperturbed by her opponent.
Pierce scowled into the screen, a dark haired and tall individual.
His face looked paunch from the angle at which he addressed them on
the screen. His shoulders were broad and he had strong and
piliferous forearms, tempered from the years of his youth when he
was known for his wrestling and cage fights. Typically, he’d wear
his casual apparel, a thick brown leather jacket and grey suited
pants. For this occasion he wore a very smart looking shirt with
nano-fabrics and digital animations usually worn by the business
classes of the Atominii world. It seemed he was serious about the
meeting, Enaya thought, and wanted to express it. Not bad, for a
faded alcoholic local celebrity. And Enaya being all for diplomacy
and consensus was happy to oblige the meeting, despite knowing it
would involve listening to demands for his return to tenure. But
what Pierce was suggesting just wasn’t what the majority of people
in Cerise Timbers wanted.

‘
I have
served many years as coordinator on and off,’ Enaya
explained.

‘
-Nobody
voted you in…’

‘
-Nobody
voted me out, Pierce. I volunteer my time here because I feel I
have skills in group facilitation. Maybe if you put your name on
the list…’

‘
-You claim
to be a democracy.’

‘
We
are
a democracy.’ Said
Daryl Sanders from the back.

‘
Moreover,
we’re a holacracy to be exact!’ Enaya joined. ‘But a functioning
democracy nevertheless.’

‘
Define it
how you will. Still you don’t seem to understand,’ said one of the
other heads, an equally embittered individual, a middle aged woman
with curls in her dark hair that dangled to the right cheekbone.
She carried herself off well as a local debutante, still aspiring
to the image of upper-class ambitions in a society where class
differences no longer existed.

‘
There are
members of this society that eat meat as a religious practice, and
you know I’m not talking about the fish! Forget discussing fish! I
want real meat!’

‘
Then by all
means find it,’ said Enaya. ‘We’re not against it. Our regulatory
agencies for the ecological surroundings are saying that wild life
has redoubling thanks to our collective progress in the surrounding
reservations. Because we have cooperated in abstaining from eating
meat the life in the surrounding forests and parts of the Novus is
making a return! But please, be my guest Danuta. I’m sure Boris can
craft you a bow and arrow. Perhaps you can convince one of the
Mercenaries to come with you on your hunting trip and teach you how
to shoot a defenceless animal for sport, and mount its head. But
nobody will do it for you I imagine.’

To this,
Danuta Philips scoffed. ‘Of course not. Nobody can do anything for
anybody here. Seems we all have to be specialists in everything if
we want something done.’

‘
No, you have
to be cooperative,’ said Enaya, ‘you have to stop pretending you
are above others. You should be attending our workshops and
training programs. You should be getting involved rather than
self-indulged.’

‘
And what’s
more!’ She said churlishly, ‘is that if we had a representative
democracy and state government, we would be able to police these
thugs who are spray painting our homes with words like fascist and
racist and other bigoted statements. Whereas you are doing nothing
to defend us.’

‘
We’ll find
out exactly who did this,’ Enaya promised. ‘East B’ One’s community
is not a frivolous one. I don’t believe it is fair what they have
done to your homes.’

‘
Have you
seen what they did to mine?’ Pierce shouted, ‘bastards! They went
as far as painting Hitler there. Hitler, for Chrissake.’

Daryl caught
his laughter in his mouth and coughed it off.

‘
Funny eh?’
Pierce growled, pointing. ‘This is exactly my point. You’re all a
bunch of degraded anarchists. No discipline at all.’

‘
Pierce try
to understand,’ said Enaya. ‘Representative democracy won’t work
here.’

‘
It used to
work!’

‘
That was a
dictatorship,’ said Enaya darkly. ‘Call it what you want but your
father did not run a democracy of any nuance. What you are asking
for is a return to absurd twenty first century politics. We
transgressed that Pierce. People died fighting against it. Nobody
wants it. It would have to be enforced.’

‘
Don’t you
understand William Blake’s metaphor?’ Daryl sanders started up,
‘the strongest poison ever known came from Caesar’s laurel
crown.’

The screens
went silent and Enaya smiled and flashed Daryl a look that told him
he wasn’t helping.

‘
What?’ he
whispered. ‘I’ve been reading some of what the revivalist poets are
researching in Minerva Meadows.’

‘
Well you see
his point,’ Enaya explained. ‘Such systems of authority aren’t
accepted here. Have you ever bothered to read our constitution? We
use agile sociocratic approaches here. We follow rules, not
rulers.’

‘
So what do
you propose?’ said an older Indian man on the screen, with dark
grey hair and a well-trimmed beard. He was a scholar and went by
the name of Niraj. ‘Do you propose we hire a private military from
the Atominii to protect our homes?’

‘
That would
be an egregious threat,’ said Enaya, ‘one our community and the
rest of Cerise Timbers would take very seriously.’

Daryl stepped
forward, deciding on how to resolve Niraj’s proposition.

‘
And then
what are we to do?’ Niraj said sharply, his eyes beset with a
stringent focus and sincerity. ‘Are we able to hire the Cerise
Timbers defence militia? No. We are not, because they defend us all
equally and leave our internal problems to politics. Except there
is no politics here. You have seen to that.’

‘
There will
be an investigation-’ Enaya started. ‘We don’t play games here,
politics exists and it’s real, not an entertainment
show.’

‘
-and if I
catch someone on my property spray painting my walls am I allowed
to brake their nose? Can I beat them with a stick? Or will the
community evict me to another region, or worse, out of Cerise
Timbers all together for simply defending my space?’

‘
You speak
about cooperation, why can’t you cooperate with the Atominii?’
Pierce grilled. ‘Or even the hardlanders for that
matter?’

‘
I think you
know why,’ Daryl said stepping between Enaya and the screens. He
pointed to the scars on his scalp, the criss-crossed section of his
head where his hair would never grow, a lattice of skin networking
small metallic contacts that freckled somewhere under in hair,
contact nodes for the neurophase. ‘Because in the Atominii
the
thinking
is
done for you. In the Atominii they’ve got your mind in their hands,
an inevitable but unforeseen aspect of cybernation in a
Totalitarian paradigm. Our philosophy is balance, transparency and
individual respect.’

‘
So where’s
our respect?’ Pierce snapped.

‘
Respect is
mutual, Mr Lewis,’ Enaya reminded, arms folded now as she leaned on
one of the tables. ‘If it can’t be shown it won’t be
returned.’

‘
And you mean
to show us no further respect?’ said Danuta.

‘
You have
done nothing to contribute to this place,’ Enaya challenged, moving
to stand beside Daryl. ‘And nothing to earn people’s respect. All
you seem to ever want is servants to do your bidding. You’re so
dependent on others in fact that you have no ability to connect and
learn what our communities are doing.’

‘
Utter
rubbish!’ Pierce bloviated, ‘I am practically running the youth
fighting clubs. I’m actively involved in getting these kids fit and
strong and ready for competitions. If it wasn’t for me the
reputation of this city’s fighters would be unheard of and we’d
have no external contributions here. You ought to be grateful, I
invite people from everywhere, I’m the one who believes in
pluralism, clearly more than you!’

‘
Yes, and
inviting competitors from Moscowai’s Atominii,’ said Daryl. ‘Which
we feel is a security threat. Don’t you wonder why the Atominii
nations are not equally as hospitable to host our teams in
their
arenas?’

‘
This has
been a waste of time,’ said Niraj, sitting back, his face darkened
as he leaned from the light of the screen. ‘I told you this would
be. Even if they find the scoundrels that marred the Lewis property
I doubt anything will be done.’

‘
A slap on
the wrist, perhaps.’ Danuta agreed.

‘
They’re
soft,’ said Niraj, ‘they don’t believe in punishment.’

‘
No they do
not.’ Pierce agreed.

‘
Correct,’
said Enaya sharply. ‘We do not. Our society has been developed upon
years of concrete research, Lewis. Solid empirical evidence which
suggests that in more fair and equal societies like Cerise Timbers,
crime levels decline, substance abuse declines, neurophase solitude
and hardland-agoraphobia vanish. Racism and intolerance decline
while social inclusion increases along with development of health,
education and ecological care, all more important than something as
metaphysical as
prof-hits
.’

‘
Then explain
to me why we have problems?’

‘
Everybody
has problems!’ Daryl shouted. ‘This isn’t a utopia, evolution takes
work. But we’re getting as damn close as we can to the orientation
of one because here we dare to dream.’

Niraj’s
screen went dark as the man walked away and severed the connection.
Pierce was still brimming while Danuta was patiently listening, her
face plain and stony.

‘
Without
romanticising,’ Enaya said, laying her hand on Daryl’s shoulder.
‘We are trying to attain a level of living comfort here suitable
for all. And it means we all have to pull together Pierce. Now
think. Is there anybody you may have angered recently? Do you have
any enemies?’

Pierce and
Danuta both sniggered.

‘
What do you
think?’ he said, gesticulating on the pronoun you.

‘
I think on
several occasions we’ve had complaints about your son Hattle
causing problems. He’s been quite violent.’

Pierce was
well aware of Hattle’s recalcitrant behaviour. He’d brought Hattle
up under a house of discipline and respect the kind he didn’t
receive from the rest of society. Sometimes it had to be enforced,
and he only imagined Hattle would also discipline others to hold
the same respect to him, especially when they refused to recognise
him.

‘
Maybe Hattle
upset somebody?’ Enaya asked.

‘
The only
people I can think of that would dare infuriate me like this,’ he
started, ‘is that neuro-jacked wire head from the hardlands, Edge
Fenris, or the gene-freak kid we’ve got running amok.’

‘
I
particularly have distaste for Edge Fenris,’ Danuta felt it prudent
to include, curling the long stand of hair behind her ear. ‘The
man’s a boorish and indecent example of your world.’

‘
We have new
comers from the Atominii and hardlands arriving in Cerise Timbers
all the time.’ Enaya stated, attempting to excuse Edge Fenris as
being merely a new-comer, unfamiliar with the social
structure.

‘
Immigrants,’
Danuta hissed bitterly.

‘
People
escaping poverty and war.’ Enaya continued, disregarding her
chides, ‘People like Edge Fenris and others who risk travelling all
the way here on word of a legend, willing to believe that such a
place is possible despite their misery and misfortunes. If I am to
determine if this is an internal matter with somebody you know and
have angered, or if this is the work of an Atominii refugee still
adapting to our ways, then I need to know who you suspect and why.
It could save a lot of time, much of which is being
exhausted.’

‘
And what
will you do about it?’ Asked Pierce.

‘
The person
will be expected to clean it up.’ Said Enaya.

‘
In a
surveillance state this would never happen to someone like me.’
Pierce insisted.

‘
Word gets
around fast,’ said Daryl, vexed by their moot back and forth.
‘We’ll find who did it.’

‘
See that you
do,’ Pierce ordered, glad to be delivering a tone of
authority.

-10-

‘S
ee to it that
you do
,’ Daryl had mimicked Pierce
resentfully as he and Enaya crossed through the gardens towards the
SkyLark air zone.
‘Guy’s got a real ego
problem.’