“Associate Kelsey di Asterion.” The rep offered their hand, and I took it as briefly as I could. Like their partner, they dressed in black plastic and iridescent neomaterials. Even if the network had been up, a sourcing scan would’ve shown only blinking question marks. Kelsey’s hair puffed into an aura of black curls. Silver glinted from their hairline, implants in place of removable mesh. Ghostly images played around the borders of their miniskirt and up the backs of their heels.
They hadn’t bothered to take one of Dinar’s pins. From what little I knew of corporate culture, these types wanted you to read gender, along with dozens of other things, from hair and makeup and clothes alone. They reveled in complex social games; they might never dress comfortably a day in their lives, but they’d smirk at anyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t play.
Kelsey’s partner, introduced as Associate Mallory di Asterion, wore a leather-and-screenwear tailcoat and raven hair to their waist. Last and most discreet, Intern Adrien di Asterion tugged surreptitiously at the flaring hem of their dusk-purple tunic before straightening into an overly self-conscious imitation of their companions. All three looked like time travelers from the gilded ’80s, flush with the rise of the fourth power, who’d been introduced to modern fabrics and absolutely nothing else from the last century.
Adrien held out a lacquer box. “A token.” Their alto voice was smooth beyond their apparent years. “We’ve brought more for our visitors, of course, but we’re grateful to you—your household—for hosting these important talks.”
Normally Dinar would accept any sort of guest gift, but she twisted her hands tightly and made no move to do so. I took the box instead. Closer to Adrien, my personal sensors picked up a cloud of volatiles. Some from the plastics in their clothing, others an inscrutable mixture of organics and paraorganics. Perfume. In shows, corporate reps were always using biologically implausible compounds to manipulate their opponents’ reactions. I resisted the urge to hold my breath. I did shunt the readings to the household network; I could run that analysis later.
Inside the box were a bottle of wine labeled in kanji and bars of baking chocolate marked with origins in Argentina and Peru (the old nation-states, not the powerful watershed networks that ought to have approved such things). Reminders of Asterion’s corporate footprint, and clearly intended for the household and not for the Chesapeake. For the first time I wondered if it had been wise to offer up our house as headquarters; it made it easier for the corporate interlopers to ignore the watershed’s place in the negotiations.
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll be sure to share these around the contact team.” I looked around hopefully—but no Mendez, no Diawara. We were on our own.
“Where are your guests?” asked Kelsey. “We’re looking forward to meeting them.”
I shrugged. “Still out at the parade. I’m sure they’ll be back soon. The whole neighborhood, and the whole watershed, are welcoming them.”
Mallory smiled. “Then maybe this is a good time for us to talk, human to human. We have many common interests, and we’ll need a united front to negotiate with a new power. Mx. Judy—” The old-fashioned title sat awkwardly with my given name, but of course by their standards I had no meaningful affiliation. And by mine, they’d traded family for sponsorship. “We’re told you head up the local delegation?”
“I do.” Even more desperately, now, I wanted the network’s collective expertise backing my mesh. I’d never worked directly with corporations, aside from the observers they sent to carbon talks. They didn’t participate actively in such things; they obeyed the strictures laid down by the watersheds, or acceded under pressure from our fenceline guardians, or cheated when they thought we wouldn’t be able to trace their emissions. I could use a crowd with guardian experience now, or even a text from Dinar. But her channel stayed silent. Whatever they’d said to her, it tightened her mouth and pulled her shoulders in close. Could they use her freelance agreements to pressure her?
Deliberately I pulled out a chair and sat. I took a muffin, and looked up at the still-standing corporate staff. In plays, people like this were obsessed with relative height; I’d seen a satire once where they carried around stepladders to prove their status. Heroes resisted the temptation. And I wanted Dinar’s crumbs on their polished fingers. “I represent the delegation for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Network. We have reps here from every continent and the U.S. government. We’re coming together to speak for the world, and listen.” True, and also a dig: opening words from any environmental congress. “We’d be glad to hear your interests as well.”
The two associates looked at each other and sat, though they didn’t eat. Adrien leaned against the wall, arms folded casually. Mallory spoke: “The common feed says these aliens—we’re calling them Ringers?—are nation-style territorialists. They argue from shared ideals, and use those ideals as an excuse to make others live as they do. I know the dandelion networks don’t trust us.” I flagged that in my recording, the first point where any of them admitted our existence. “But corporate strength has always come from transmuting the threat of force into softer trade. If we all eat the same food, play the same games, they’ll gloss over any difference in values.”
“They live in space stations,” added Kelsey. “With enough trade, they’ll see our interest in planets as simply a place we aren’t in competition. Not that we can’t compete in space, too. Why not get a few stations of our own? Factories with shields of vacuum—think of everything we could accomplish. But first we need to figure out what goods appeal to them. What they’d want from us, if they knew it was on offer.”
So much nuance and threat tangled in those reasonable-sounding suggestions. My undrained mesh stretched its memory to the breaking point. Still I cued problems and questions, ready to go as soon as the network came up, while I thought about how to respond.
When it did come up, I stalled out. It was only a moment—a stutter of status in the corner of my vision. Recordings and questions surged with that flash before it flickered away, and I wondered too late if thousands of cued uploads from across the region had overwhelmed the launch. Redbug would know. Maybe their team could lay down safeties, titrate activity for the next reboot.
They stomped out through the living room curtains, trailed by the tech team, and I braced myself. But their anger wasn’t for me. “What are they doing here?” demanded Redbug.
Mallory and Kelsey started to rise from their seats, but it was Dinar who said, “They’re here from Asterion. It’s a conglomerate that trades nanomaterials and luxury foods—”
“I know what they trade,” said Redbug. “What are they doing here?”
“Asking to meet the Ringers,” said Dinar. She tensed further. “Is there something we should know?”
“Their nanomaterials go in half of the old server chips,” said one of the tech experts. “The same servers that just failed on reboot. Maybe these bluescreens can tell us why.” She pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, revealing well-muscled arms inked with river maps. “I’ve done guardian work, I know how to handle corps outside the fenceline.”
“We’re not absolutely certain yet that Asterion’s involved,” murmured Redbug, without particular force. “Just that it’s corporate.”
Violence between humans, tempting as it might be, would do us no good with the Ringers. And, not that it was one of my expertises, I was pretty sure the scans on corporate imports were pretty thorough. But it was Dinar who spoke first. “Associates, Intern, these are our programming team. We’ve been feeding them here all night.”
She looked pointedly at the table. Kelsey made a moue of amusement. They picked up a muffin gracefully between thumb and forefinger, sprinkled salt from the cellar, took a pointed bite. Mallory followed suit, and handed a piece back to Adrien.
“Now you can talk to them,” Dinar told the tech team.
“What, you want us to just ask if they sabotaged the network?” demanded the woman with the tattoos.
“We didn’t,” said Mallory calmly. “We heard about your connection problems on the common feed, the same as everyone else. We’d be glad to lend you some of our techies as a gesture of goodwill, if you need a hand with your servers.”
“We’re doing fine,” said Redbug. “We don’t want your tentacles on our code any more than they already are, thanks just the same.” They swung back toward the living room.
“And you,” said the tattooed tech expert to Dinar, “I’ll bet they’re glad to have one of their pet data-crunchers protecting them. If you’re useful enough, maybe they’ll promote you.”
Dinar flinched. I pushed my chair back. “You want to say that differently, or say it outside? We’re only trying to keep people from getting into fistfights in our dining room—and where the Ringers might see us being ‘uncivilized.’ It’s not Dinar’s fault we don’t have the setup to problem-solve properly.”
I glared until she ducked her head—though she still glowered at the Asterion team through her lashes. I couldn’t entirely blame her. The thing was, even if Asterion was responsible for the malware, this crowd might not know a thing. They were diplomatic experts—hell, the way companies ran things, this might be their only work—not tech specialists. Our servers were distributed all over the watershed; the only vulnerabilities anyone could exploit at our house were social. “I don’t think we’ve met?” I asked, to give her something else to say.
“Elegy,” she said. And: “I’m sorry I lost my temper. If you learn anything from your esteemed guests, let us know.” And she followed Redbug back behind the curtain.
Mallory’s gaze followed, languid. “Techies are the same everywhere,” she said. “Swear a hole straight through you if you catch them in the middle of a bug.”
“They’ve got reasons to be suspicious,” I said. “Do you know anything about the network crash?” I turned up every sense I had available, ready to catch any nuance of skin conductance or breathing pattern or hesitation that made it through their polished presentations.
“I sure as hell don’t.” Kelsey examined their muffin, frowning. “It’s not in our interest to leave meeting hosts short on organizational resources.” The frown morphed to a wry smile. “I’d offer space on our own internal network, if I didn’t think it would raise your techie’s paranoia even further.”
“But if you want us to offer,” murmured Mallory, “just ask.”
Their physiological signs were consistent with worry, curiosity, and the natural stress of our accusations. With the right justification, we could shove them back behind their fenceline before they even got to meet Cytosine. Of course, even with more disturbing readings and access to a good algorithm, I couldn’t have gotten the probability for any of Elegy’s accusations above 70 percent. Leaving aside that Asterion might be sophisticated enough to fake neurophysiological signs, somewhere in the circuitry of those outfits. It had been worth a shot.
“Do you think someone else…?” Adrien asked the associates.
“If so,” said Kelsey, “they’ll be off this alliance fast.”
Mallory turned back to me. “We know you prefer to keep in-person meetings small. If our visitors had landed on Zealand, we’d invite every power on the planet to our ballrooms. Maybe this is better—less overwhelming for the Ringers, at least. But Asterion outbid a dozen other companies to be here, and in turn we represent all their interests—as long as they represent ours. If you find out who did this, please let us know.” Teeth bared, briefly. “We wouldn’t mind downsizing our consortium.”
I busied myself with a muffin. Even with most of their power gone, the corporations were still playing the cannibalistic games that had almost destroyed the world. The remnant was far from harmless. Yet here they were inviting us, winningly, to share a bite. As if it were theirs to offer. As if whatever advantage they clawed out of the crashes—their doing or otherwise—wouldn’t be corrosive. “If we find out who did this, we’ll take care of it.”
The Ringers would return soon. The kids would be back, Dori and Diamond and Chlorophyll and Manganese, and I didn’t want any of them near these people. It might’ve been better to let Elegy have her way.