The Beam: Season Two (5 page)

She sat on the chaise then glanced at the chair behind him. He sat too. She softened her eyes. He scooted the chair closer.
 

“Isaac.”

“Yes?”
 

“You are Directorate through and through. It doesn’t matter if you’re Czar of Internal Satisfaction, making millions upon millions, or if you were a mailman or a midlevel manager living two breaths above the line. You’d
always
be Directorate. The philosophy is in your blood.”
 

“Okay.”
 

“You don’t understand what it is to make your own way.”
 

His eyes hardened a whit, as if waiting for a blow. He looked as if he thought he was being set up. He was, of course, but Isaac was Directorate. He didn’t know to improvise, to steer around an obstacle that was directly in front of him.
 

“Okay.”

“Before
Persephone
hit, I worked as hard as anyone I’ve ever known. And
after
it hit, I worked even harder. In Enterprise, you’re rewarded for being agile. You’re praised for doing things that others won’t. For understanding how the market works and taking risks inside of it.”
 

Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“That even though I could never expect you to understand, the truth is that humiliating you is the single most powerful thing I can
do
to re-launch my career.”
 

Isaac stood.

“My brand was always the angry woman fighting for what she feels,” she continued. “But I’ve been wearing a yoke since I marched behind you into Directorate. I can’t simply announce that I’m returning to being angry and ask everyone to ignore my time in the inferior party. My success depends on shedding the yoke, smashing it to pieces, and burning the splinters while I laugh at what it represented. I have to acknowledge what I did, then disavow it.”
 

Isaac shook his head as he stood above her. “I don’t believe this.”
 

Natasha recrossed her legs. “I have to explain all of this away so I can turn my weakness into a strength. Don’t you see?” She laughed. “Oh, who am I kidding. Of course you don’t.”

“Please,” he begged. “This will ruin me. You must realize that.”
 

Natasha felt herself smile. “Sure, I realize it. The problem is what
you
don’t realize.”
 

“And what’s that?”
 

Natasha stood. She took Isaac’s hands in hers and said sweetly, “You’re protesting that my actions will hurt you, and you keep proposing ways that I can do what I need to do
without
hurting you.”
 

Isaac swallowed.

“But darling,” she said. “What I need
is
to hurt you.”

Chapter 3

“You’ve got a glitch,” said Micah.
 

Isaac tried to follow Micah’s pointing finger. He turned to look behind him, wondering what his brother was talking about.
 

“On your face. It looks like you have a bruise.”
 

Isaac touched his cheek. “That’s not a glitch. I was pissed at Natasha and punched my office door. It rebounded and hit me in the face.”
 

Micah knew it wasn’t a glitch, of course. When Isaac had asked to meet him in one of their shared virtual spaces, he’d allowed Isaac to log in first, as he always did when joining a meetup. Once Isaac was in the space he’d nicknamed “the library,” Micah had done the
other
thing he always did — asked his hot-hacked canvas to tune into the room’s occupant and report back anything anomalous. Usually, the anomalous thing was a rapid heartbeat or abnormal levels of tension, but with Isaac, it was a bruise where repair nanos were working hard in the real world on his brother’s real body. He’d assumed that Natasha had hit Isaac, but this was much funnier.
 

“You should adjust your rig’s settings,” Micah suggested. “Seeing as you’re not actually here, it can project you however you’d like. Have it erase bruises and cuts that haven’t healed, things like that. Oh, and you should make your hairline accurate while you’re in there.”

“This is how my hairline really is.”

“Oh.” Micah knew that too. In an age of eternal youth and nanobot restructuring for those with endless credits, only someone like Isaac could still somehow manage less than perfection.

“Anyway, I need your help,” said Isaac.

Micah chuckled. He knew exactly why Isaac had called, and the fact that he’d requested a full immersion — contrived, transparent, and pathetic — meant that he wanted to discuss something that he considered to be a major emergency. Micah even knew what the emergency was, seeing as he’d given Natasha the idea that had caused it.
 

“I’m your little brother,” said Micah. “
You’re
the one who’s supposed to be giving
me
help. Protecting me from bullies, perhaps.”
 

“Natasha is out of control, Micah.”
 

“…or from rebounding office doors.”

“She’s planning a big concert the day after Shift. I don’t even see how it’s possible to pull something like that together so fast, but this is Natasha, and Natasha always gets her way.”
 

Micah smiled internally. It wasn’t only Natasha.
 

“It’s so obviously a dig at me rather than anything legitimate. She doesn’t need to humiliate me. She could schedule the concert for later. But do you know what? This concerns you too, Micah. Natasha’s making
you
look bad.”
 

“Me?”
 

“Enterprise. She’s making you all look like sore winners.”
 

“So we’ve won?”
 

Isaac cleared his throat, the immersion rig perfectly re-creating his nervous tic for Micah’s virtual eyes. “You know what I mean. She’s shifting, fine. She wants to hold a big event to raise money once she’s surrendered her Directorate dole, fine. But to play it off as a celebration? To hear her talk, it’s like she’s being released from a Wild East prison. Like she’s clearing her name or something. We let her do this, and we’re sending the NAU a message that Directorate somehow captured Natasha and forced her to live as a trained monkey. But that’s not fair. She
chose
Directorate, like everyone else chooses their party. To play her departure off as a victory is garish. It has no class.”
 

Micah shrugged. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”
 

“Stop her. You know how.”
 

“I can’t do that, Isaac.”
 

“Of course you can. You have sway. I don’t have the same influence. You make a few calls, have a few meetings, and all of this disappears. Natasha won’t be able to get her permits for the venue, or the police detachments she’ll probably insist on to provide security. Or to wax her car.”
 

Micah gave Isaac a
what do you want from me?
face. “The police are a Directorate function,” he said.
 

“Like I control the police!”

Micah watched his brother with concealed amusement. Isaac had framed this as a meeting, but it had never been a meeting. It was a chance for Isaac to beg. It was a chance for Isaac to plead with Micah to put the big machines into motion and choke the parties where they needed choking. It was so obvious, Micah should have asked the environment to add a padded kneeler to Isaac’s side of the room.
 

“Maybe you should call Dominic Long,” Micah suggested.
 

“You
call Dominic!”
 

Micah’s eyes hardened. “Get ahold of yourself, Isaac. You might not actually head the Directorate, but the world acts as if you do. Every school kid knows that Presidents Reese and Vale run the parties, but every goddamned gossip sheet talks like the quarreling Ryans are in charge: strong and solid Micah on the Enterprise side and his sad, pathetic brother, Isaac, on Directorate.”
 

“Fuck you, Micah. I come to you with a problem, and all you can do is insult me?”
 

“Fuck me?” said Micah. “Fuck
you!
You think it’s an insult? You don’t think it’s simply the
truth
about the public’s perception? Goddammit, Isaac, I don’t want to lower my game and let you win like I always had to when we played Monopoly as kids, but you don’t seem to be able to keep up if I don’t. Don’t you see how…how
sad
it is when you have to let your older brother win games because he’ll never win otherwise? I tried looking up to you, but somehow things always ended up the other way around. I’m telling you what you already know, if you’d have the guts to look at things with an honest eye. Do you really think the public doesn’t have a favorite? You
always
lose, Isaac. Always. I didn’t even try to trump you with that stupid speech you gave after the riots. Yet somehow, thanks to your stunning incompetence, I managed to anyway.”
 

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“You’re too goddamn timid. You want help? Help yourself! I feel like I’m putting this show on alone, playing both of the parts. It’s not Micah fighting with Isaac. It’s Micah versus Micah, with my hand up your ass like a puppet.”
 

“Oh, come on…”
 

“You don’t think that’s how it is? Then tell me: What happened with the riots, Isaac? Starting with the one at Natasha’s concert?”

Isaac’s forehead bunched, his dark eyebrows drawing together.
 

“I fucking started them!
” Micah shouted. “What the hell did you think happened? Did you think a bunch of your pathetic, do-nothing layabouts took it upon themselves to rise up? If they were the type of people who would do that,
they’d already be Enterprise
!”
 

“You
started the riots?”
 

Micah threw up his hands. “Of course! Noah Fucking West, Isaac! Nothing was happening, and you were oblivious. A month before Shift, and Enterprise versus Directorate was starting to feel like a bucket of water against a smoldering pile of leaves. You miss the most obvious things! It’s fucking Monopoly all over again. You land on Boardwalk, and you pass it up. Who does that, Isaac?”

He wasn’t being figurative. Isaac had literally done that in a Monopoly game at the age of fifteen. The idiot had already owned Park Place.

“That only happened
one
time, and I didn’t have the money,” said Isaac.

“Mortgage your other properties! Take a loan! Steal from the bank when I wasn’t looking! It’s
motherfucking Boardwalk!”
 

“So the solution — then and today — is to cheat,” Isaac said. “Steal. Start riots then blame the other side.”
 

Micah rolled his eyes and shook his head. His lips firmed as he issued a mental command to the canvas running the simulation. Isaac was blown backward as if shoved hard by an invisible hand. The backs of his legs struck a chair. Isaac looked up in shock, and Micah shoved him again from across the room, this time causing him to totter over the chair and spill to the floor. None of it should have been possible in a legitimate sim, but Micah made a point to always, always hold a hidden ace.

“Of course the solution is to cheat!”
Micah yelled. “If you can’t get what you want, you keep changing things until you can! The fucking wheel was put into your hands whether you like it or not, Isaac.
Steer it!
They’d fire you if they could, but it’s not your official title as Czar of Internal Satisfaction that matters to the public. All that matters is that you’re my brother, and regrettably, you can’t be fired from that. So if you can’t handle your side of the game, I have no choice but to play it for you, just like I always have.”
 

Isaac was still looking around as if trying to see what had tripped him. He was beyond aghast. He seemed offended, as if the sun had failed to rise and he was taking the insult to natural order personally.
 

“How did you push me down?” he said.

Micah felt the last of his cool evaporating. He stormed across the room and roared,
“I cheated!”
 

“You can’t do that.”
 

The statement was absurd enough to shatter Micah’s rage. He slipped past angry and into something closer to resignation. He turned away from Isaac, who was still on the floor, and approached the library’s far end. He wanted to put his face in his palms and surrender. But the problem wouldn’t go away as long as Isaac existed, so after a moment he turned back, shook his head, and continued in a lower voice.
 

“Isaac,” he said.
 

“Noah Fucking West, Micah. You can’t hack inputs like that. It’s…it’s…”
 

“Get up. Stop acting so shocked, and get to your fucking feet.”
 

Isaac did then stood, waiting for orders.

Micah sat in one of the overstuffed chairs against the shelves of virtual books. They were all complete and full, packed with information and stories from cover to back. Micah had insisted on it when he’d had the simulation designed. Blank books made him sad and would feel like an insult to his role as head of Capital Protection. For Micah, “Capital Protection” wasn’t a political catchphrase. Humanity’s cache of knowledge and brainpower was, in Micah’s mind, legitimately in jeopardy. His brother was living proof.