WAVE Orbiting Station
Now

Harmony

You snitched on Raquel? Oh, that explains a lot.

No, no, it wasn't like that. I heard Vestra laugh in my head. It really wasn't as simple as that.

I know. It never is. It's anything but simple, isn't it? Love. Mancy and me were never simple. You know, mind links are different between different people. It doesn't always mean you become lovers.

But it did between you and Mancy?

Yes, and right away. I wasn't sure I liked him. I'm not even sure I ever liked him. But I fell hard—I was giddy with it.

You're crying. Vestra sensed the tear rolling down my face before I did. I wiped it away.

I wanted to say more, but I didn't. I could feel how tired Vestra was, as she left the Arboretum and limped to her quarters. It had been a long day for both of us, and I couldn't stop her feeling the pain from that bad hip of mine. Had I overwhelmed her with too much information—too much mind-speak, too much everything? I didn't know, but I thought it best to stop for the night. I let my mind drift away from hers and soon, though we could still feel each other's presence and we could still reach out to each other if we wanted, our minds were our own again.

Breathing in the bland air of my cell, I lay back down on the hard bunk, lying on my good hip and rubbing my hand over my bad one. And I began to remember what it was like to fall in love so fast and deep.

***
Pit District, Simoom
Three years ago

I was like a teenager—always trying to get Mancy's attention—always wanting him to look at me, especially in front of the others. In our council meetings no one actually talked out loud. Good thing really, I remember thinking, 'cause even where we were—deep in the main bunker—the moment you opened your mouth dust got in.

Mancy would laugh at my thoughts. At this one meeting—it was before the barricades went up, but the Pit Pats were giving us a hard time and we were having trouble getting supplies from the Plat—Mancy slouched on a pile of food bags 'cross from me, stretching out his long legs. He was looking at me, so I sat up straight to show off my boobs. He always made me feel noticed.

A flash of pissy-ness came from Omari, standing between us. Can we get back to the matter at hand, please? Omari threw another thought my way. Water supply?

I bit my lip and shrugged, trying to keep on topic. A week maybe—if we cut rations again.

Bergen, contact your man on the Plat. You'll have to make another water run.

But Bergen was shaking his head, throwing doubt at everyone. Going to be tough—even with the dust on our side. WAVE Security has tightened.

Fear squirmed its way in. What do we do now? thought Sharise.

We fight back. Kick their asses. This was from Ng—who always thought he was in some superhero show.

No, no—they want us to fight—then they can blame us for starting it, thought Omari.

We can't give them any excuse for violence—they'll clamp down hard, replied Bergen.

Are we just going to let them get away with this?

I cringed. Thoughts and feelings from everyone fought inside me and out, picking up the red dust off everything in the room. It always amazed me the way the dust reacted to our bickering.

And then, in the middle of the fight, Mancy tossed a soft thought. What if we just co-operate with them? Right away the dust settled and our heads shut up. We all turned to Mancy. Oh, come on, it's not as if no one's thought about it before. What's the problem? They just want to resettle us and for us to follow some rules.

He's right. That doesn't sound so bad. I felt people beginning to agree. Omari called it "consensus." He was always going on about consensus and how to do it. How you had to argue a bit, get all the crap out into the open, kick up the dust, until somehow in the swirl of arguments people would latch on one by one to form a single thought—a single direction—consensus. And consensus felt good—it warmed your gut, gave you hope.

People began to agree with Mancy, to feel that warm hope, until Omari squashed it: Can we really trust WAVE?

My stomach dropped as consensus started to swing the other way.

And then Sharise's chin went up. Personally, I'd rather die than leave my home.

Her thought hung in the air, until Mancy, who seemed to me almost shaking with both anger and laughter, got up, bowed to them all and said out loud: "Well, congratulations. You may just get your wish."

Right away, he swallowed dust—or maybe the dust rushed into him—and he started to cough.

WAVE Orbiting Station
Now

Doric

I fell into bed, wondering how far this telepathy went. I tossed and turned, rubbing my sore hip. Ann's mind had quieted now, and I didn't want to disturb her, but I had so many questions. Are we connected when we're asleep? If I don't specifically, deliberately tell Ann the rest of the Raquel story, will she know it regardless? Can she pick it out of my brain without my consent or even knowledge? Can I keep anything from her? I didn't want to tell her the whole thing—I didn't want to tell myself the whole thing, but I began going over it in my head anyway.

***

New Earth
Eleven years ago

I've never been shy socially, but Raquel was just so perfect I couldn't find the nerve to approach her—until I was ordered to by Campus Sec. Weirdly enough, it was the jolt that I needed. I had to take the assignment; it was a career move I just couldn't pass up. And I thought I could have them both—my career and Raquel. I convinced myself that the assignment would come to naught—that neglecting her tickets was the extent of Raquel's illegal activities. I would have nothing to report anyway, so it wasn't really like I was deceiving her. And if it ever came out, it would be a funny story we'd tell our great-grandkids: "Remember when I found out you were spying on me, Honey?" Raquel would laugh, and kiss my old hand. It was ludicrous, of course, but those are the little lies you tell yourself when you're trying to rationalize your behaviour.

I had my assignment, so I began to attend the weekly protests on campus, usually in front of the Hall that housed the faculty offices, but sometimes by the Roving Centre for Media & Journalism Studies. I stood as close as I could to the organizers and speakers, so Raquel would spot me in the crowd again and again. She usually left the speaking to others in her anti-corruption, anti-big-business, pro-privacy group (the group had no official name and its focus was constantly shifting), but when she did speak, she endeared herself to me even more.

Not because she was a good speaker, but because she wasn't.

"Uhmmm, hello," she would mumble into a portable microphone—her usual cockiness giving way to nerves. "I'm here..." Then she'd clear her throat. "...Today...to...talk about giant corporations that are swallowing up independent thought at this university, and across the worlds." Then she'd take out a big wad of notes on paper (where did they even get paper?)—and begin to quote statistics: "Eight of the twelve members on the board of directors of this university have close ties to or are major shareholders in the largest multiworlds on New Earth, including American Transgalactic; New Earth Power; Interworld Shipping; WAVE Corp.; XStar Xplorations; Urban Safety & Security; Fresh Farm Chemicals; Roving Media & Entertainment..."

As she kept listing businesses, more and more of her audience would drift away or start looking at their screens. So, she'd talk louder: "Over the last three years, 2.5 billion credits from these multiworlds have flowed into the university, including 6.5 million in the form of private grants to researchers; 952.3 million for naming rights and sponsorship deals; and 1.08 billion in endowment funds—and there are strings attached to all of this funding."

When that failed to impress, Raquel would panic and switch topics: "There are an estimated 2 million drone cameras in this city alone—that's two and a half times more cameras than there are people—all of them are owned by private corporations, including the so-called 'independent press.' Roving has a fleet of over 900,000."

Then when they still seemed completely uninterested, she would stop talking and start screeching: "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? ARE YOU ALL ASLEEP? YOU USELESS PIECES OF—"

At that point, one of her fellow organizers would step in and take the microphone away from her. And I would watch Raquel's face so alive with outrage and disbelief, and my heart would open a little more. She really thought people should care.

This went on for a while, protest after protest, week after week. I'm sure Raquel noticed me, but she never caught my eye, spoke to me or approached me in any way—none of them did. I thought I was going too slow for Campus Sec, and apologized to my boss, but they told me not to worry, sometimes these things take time. "This group's peculiar," my boss said. "As far as we can tell they do very little in the way of cyberattacks or hacking. Their media presence is generic to say the least, and their digi-followers few. Meetings are done in person and communications between members tend to be offline—either word of mouth or in print on paper."

"Jeez, how very analogue Old-Earth of them. Are you sure they're not using coded messages buried in innocuous texts or vlogs?" I asked.

My boss shrugged. "We've analyzed the hell out of their messages, and have come up with nothing."

"But how do they recruit members or influence anyone or finance themselves?"

"It seems they don't have a digi-account. They prefer to barter for the goods and services they use, but not through an on-line portal. All the bartering is done offline. Same goes with influence and recruiting campaigns. What's more, only a handful of them—including your target—speak at the protests. Other key figures keep their faces hidden from the cameras. Like these two here." They showed me a shot of two hooded figures, with their backs turned. "Feeds buzz out whenever they're around."

"Well, they're not completely analogue then; they've got jamming tech," I said.

They nodded their head. "I want you to get an invite to one of their private planning meetings."

"What are they planning?"

"That's what you need to find out."

"But you must have some inkling. What do you suspect?"

"Remember the two moon shuttles blown up at the Interworld Shipping yard last year?"

"No way!" I was stunned. "That was far too sophisticated a job for this group. How the culprits even got past the Yard's Sec was astonishing."

My boss smiled at me. "As you said, they're not completely analogue. Get close to them."

And so I tried—even though I doubted they were planning anything that large or destructive. My in came a month later at another of their public protests, this one against surveillance tech and held on the steps of the Media Studies building, on a warm spring afternoon.

Raquel was upfront holding the microphone, but for once I wasn't looking at her. I had my eye on this guy at the back of the crowd, wearing a bulky hooded jacket—despite the temperature. He kept one hand always tucked inside. What did he have in there? A gun? There were a couple of bored Campus Sec Uniforms standing around, not paying attention. As well, the drone cameras circulating above were mostly focused on the speakers up front—not the crowd.

I was wondering how I could surreptitiously sidle up to one of the Uniforms and point out jacket guy, when Raquel, getting pissed off at the lacklustre crowd, upped her game at the microphone: "I see, we have, what? Fifteen...sixteen...seventeen...eighteen drone cameras watching us right now. Wow, didn't know we were all so important, right?" That earned her a couple of snickers. "You'd think they'd have real bad guys to spy on, right?" Some chuckles. She turned her head up to the buzzing drones, smiled and waved. "Hi! How are you assholes? Having a good time?" Then she turned her attention to the crowd again. "Let's all wave to the cameras, shall we?"

And so we—some of us as a joke and some reluctantly—waved and smiled at the cameras.

"Good. Now let's all tell them to fuck off!" Raquel led the way, yelling profanity after profanity at the drones. And soon others joined in—those shrieking with gusto I figured were planted there to get people riled up.

Before long we had grown into a raucous crowd all chanting in unison to a bunch of miniature flying saucers: "Fuck off and leave us alone! Fuck off and leave us alone!" People were laughing, recording the scene on their own devices, fooling around for the cameras. The hovering Uniforms became tense and nervous. I saw one call for back-up.

I was trying to keep an eye on jacket guy, but I couldn't help but notice the elation on Raquel's face. As more and more people joined in the chorus, she lit up with excitement. Did she really think this wasn't just one big joke for most of them?

Apparently not, because at the height of the chanting, she suddenly yelled: "Take down the Drones! Take down the drones!"

A cheer went up, and people started to chant with her. Just then one of the highest hovering drones fell out of the sky and crashed on the concrete walkway, scattering bits of plastic and metal. People burst into clapping and then cheered when someone in the crowd stomped down hard on the downed drone. Two metres to the left another drone fell and shattered on the pavement. "Holy shit!" I realized what jacket guy was doing. He didn't have a gun; he had a portable jammer and was interfering with the signals. Another drone fell and the crowd grew louder, hollering and stomping on the dead drones. A fourth and fifth fell. More Uniforms arrived. They moved to disperse the crowd. None of them had spotted jacket guy, who had backed away and was hiding in a corner. But what could I do? I was undercover—I couldn't go after him.

Raquel screamed. Two Uniforms, truncheons out, were trying to pull the portable microphone from her death grip, while she kept yelling: "We have a right to privacy. We have a right not to be recorded!" Then she bit down hard on the hand of one of the Uniforms. The Sec officer raised her truncheon. I moved instinctively, leaping forward and pulling Raquel away. The Uniform's truncheon caught me on my shoulder as I dragged Raquel through the scattering crowd and down a closed alley too tight for the remaining drones to follow.