The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (11 page)

It seemed odd to Joss that he and Kupi had witnessed two attacks against GSA military installations in the last few days, first in Bostoner and then in Quebec. He'd commented on this to her, but she'd said it was just happenstance. There were always attacks around the country, caused by Corporate interests, criminals living in the wilderness, and other groups that didn't like Rahma's new form of government, one that was unlike any in the history of human civilization.

At one time, this northern region of the Green States of America had been part of Canada. Even before the massive, ragtag revolution against the Corporates, it had been one of the nations that showed concern for the environment, and took steps to protect it. Most of that impetus, however, came from the common people, and less so from the government, and only grudgingly from Canadian and multinational Corporate interests that had operations in the country. When the Chairman's regime took over, this region still needed considerable cleaning up, but not nearly on the scale of the blighted regions to the south.

The maglev train in which Joss rode could have completed the four-thousand-kilometer journey in less than a day, but it made stops along the way to drop off some of the Janus Machine crews and their machinery at work sites. He and his crew had not been among those with assignments, owing to the demanding schedule of splitting and greenforming they'd already endured in the east. As a reward for their hard work they were bound for their homes in the Seattle Reservation and a brief vacation. Within the hour, they had just returned from a sumptuous dinner in the dining car, and Joss still felt the warmth of roast pork and a fine Pomerol wine in his belly.

At the moment, Kupi sat across from him at a passenger compartment table, dealing samba cards to him as well as to two other male members of their crew, the tall, jocular J-Mac driver Bim Hendrix and an aging mechanic for the non-proprietary vehicle systems, Sabe McCarthy. The deck of cards had photos of filthy, smoke-belching industrial sites on the backs, each with a red line across it; other decks depicted notorious Corporate tycoons, eco-criminals, and Army of the Environment military victories.

“Doesn't it ever strike you as curious that we get to eat meat,” Kupi asked, “while hundreds of millions of other people are told to eat protein substitutes?”

“Not at all,” McCarthy said. “We work our butts off for the state, and deserve the few perks we get. We put in longer hours than other folks, get more important work done.”

“Right,” Hendrix said, picking up his cards and sorting his hand quickly. “Kind of makes you wonder, though, doesn't it? What if we got fired and had to eat regular food?”

“Pray to Green that never happens,” Kupi said.

“The sarcasm of Kupi Landau,” McCarthy said, scowling as he studied his cards.

“Be careful,” Kupi said with a tight smile, “I do have a talent for violence.”

“And for dealing bad cards,” McCarthy said.

Annoyed, Kupi narrowed her gaze and stared hard at him.

“Enough of that,” Joss said. “Let's save our hostilities for industrial sites, OK?” He didn't like the way the conversation was going. His crew had been on the road for nearly a month, and with the accumulated fatigue, emotions had a tendency to get raw.

Grunts of affirmation passed around the table, and the samba game proceeded. Fortunately for Kupi's state of mind, she made a number of good draws and captured the pot, which enabled her to meld cards on the table. As her simulated wealth accumulated she began to smirk at McCarthy, but he didn't react.

The train slowed down on its maglev rail. Joss heard two bells over the public address system, followed by a woman's voice. “The signaler is routing us onto a siding, ladies and gentlemen, to wait for a relocation train to pass.”

“It has the right of way,” Hendrix said.

Everyone at the table knew that. Relocation trains were full of people who were being moved from their previous homes in polluted areas onto new reservations for humans that were being constructed as massive public works projects, with much of the labor performed by convicts. Due to the rushed construction schedules there had been many safety-related deaths—but to justify that, the Chairman said the program was a priority even higher than the work of Janus Machine crews, since dense population centers harmed the environment much less than sprawled developments and their infrastructures. Because of high demand for reservation space as they continued to be built, however, many people were confined to their previous towns and cities, or placed in rudimentary containment camps under armed guard—until something opened up for them.

Looking at a viewing screen on one end of the passenger car, Joss saw images of a long train approaching from the rear, speeding around a curve of tracks. Guided by maglev engineers, hundreds of shabby, green, windowless boxcars thundered by, causing Joss's train to shake and shudder. Out the window, he saw the train disappear into the distance. Thousands and thousands of people were crammed inside those cars. He'd seen relocation trains before and didn't like to think about conditions inside them—except he assumed the high-speed maglev trips were short.

A government information video appeared on the passenger car's wallscreen, showing the various methods of relocation, including trains like the one ahead of them and huge transport aircraft that carried thousands of people at a time. The planes looked pregnant with their big bellies full of people.

The image switched to a utopian reservation for humans, showing crowds of people going about their daily business with saccharine smiles on their faces. “Historically these northern territories have been sparsely populated,” a female announcer said, “and now hundreds of millions of people are being relocated here. ‘Relocation is good. Relocation is green.'” It was one of the mantras.

*   *   *

DOUG RIDELL HAD
a full schedule, going to apartments in the more prestigious districts of the Missoula Reservation, maintaining and repairing the robots of privileged citizens who were above his own station. He wore a pale green work coverall and a backpack filled with tools.

He considered his new job something of a promotion, though there had been no talk of a pay increase or providing his family with more benefits, and he could only wait to be notified about such things. But for the most part he had been enjoying the reassignment, despite having no previous experience dealing with the public, with their varying personalities and moods.

On the forty-second floor of a gleaming, glass-walled apartment building, Ridell placed his hand-held précis against a scanner on a tenant's door. After confirming his identity, a fashionable woman let him in; he knew her name from the assignment log: Mrs. Kristine Longet. An attractive blonde with a figure that filled her expensive clothing nicely, she was perhaps forty-five or fifty, with cold blue eyes and an icy expression that exuded superiority.

“I thought you would be here an hour ago,” she said.

“Sorry, ma'am, I have a real busy schedule today.” He smelled expensive incense, a subtle fragrance that was much more sophisticated than the common variety.

She arched her eyebrows in displeasure. “Our cleaning bot has been down for more than three days, causing us all sorts of discomforts. We have allergies to dust, you know.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am, but we'll have the little guy up and working in short order.”

“Either that or I want a new one.”

As the stylish woman led him through a corridor and then into a comfortable living room, Ridell looked around in envy at all the things her family had. The apartment was at least twice as big as his own, with expensive gem-beads hanging in the doorways that made a gentle tinkling sound as they passed through them. The living room was filled with leisure technology, and one wall featured images of drum circle percussionists, playing repeated patterns. The furniture was all post-revolution and high-end, with ornately stitched patriotic slogans on the tan cushions of the couch, fancy dispersion lamps that used hardly any energy, and a long decorator table on one wall, containing a very realistic-looking model of a Janus Machine, complete with crew.

“Over there,” she said, pointing to the non-functioning household robot in one corner. A metal mound with soft bumpers around the perimeter, the unit had a golden sensor array encircling its body and a standard panel box on top, with a remote-control unit in a slot. The machine's undercarriage was low to the floor.

“Does your robot have a name?” he asked, kneeling and looking inside the panel box. He removed his backpack, brought out a test bundle, and connected it to the circuitry.

“A name? Whatever do you mean?”

“Some families name their robots, sort of an affectionate thing to do.” Ridell watched the small screen on the test bundle as the device ran through its program, looking for the problem. While waiting for the results, he checked the unit's remote transmitter.

“It's just a machine,” she said. “Name a robot?” She paused, and seemed to soften a little. “I suppose I
have
heard of people doing that, but it makes no sense to me. I just want what the machine does for me, the product of its work; I don't want to imagine it's a family member, a little friend, or anything like that.”

“I see.”

The woman was a bit haughty, knowing that she occupied a social station well above his own mid-green status. But she seemed to be making an effort to be pleasant. As he worked, she mentioned that she was also having trouble with her food preparation machine, and asked if he could fix it, too.

Even though he could probably repair that unit, it was not in his job description, and there were strict union rules against performing tasks that were the domain of other union shops. He didn't explain all of that to her, though, and just said, “Sorry, I only know how to service cleaning bots. You'll need to turn in another work request.”

“Oh, very well.”

The test bundle reported a problem with the servo-motor synchronization, causing the bot to shut down to prevent damage. He made adjustments inside the panel, then flipped the unit over and checked the undercarriage wheels, sensors, and suction devices. Then, removing the remote-control unit from its slot, he dispatched the robot to clean the room. Whirring smoothly, it ran over the carpets and synthetic wood floors, then up the wide legs of a table and, perching on top, it used extension arms and blowers to dust carefully around a replica Ming vase and an electronic image in a picture frame.

The framed image was locked in place, and caught Ridell's eye. It showed a pretty young redhead standing with a green-robed Chairman Rahma, suggesting that this family had high connections.

Noticing the direction of his gaze, Mrs. Longet said proudly, “My daughter Dori is a close adviser to our beloved Chairman Rahma. That picture was taken earlier this year.”

“At the Montana Valley Game Reserve?” he asked.

“Of course. That is his home and headquarters, and Dori works for him there.”

“Well, what a coincidence! My daughter Jade is with our beloved Chairman at the game reserve, too—recently joined him.” Then, feeling a sudden camaraderie with the woman, he extended a hand to her and added, “It's nice to meet another parent.”

Dori's mother froze up, looked askance at the hand as if it were dirty, and did not shake. “Mr. Ridell, you get whatever Chairman Rahma says you get, so don't try to curry favor with me! Just complete your work here and be on your way.”

Red-faced, he completed the task of checking the robot, while wishing he knew how to program the machine to strangle this arrogant, condescending woman. In a matter of minutes he was out the door and into the hallway, his thoughts punctuated by the sound of the door closing securely behind him, and the clicking of the security locks.

He hurried away, hoping he never had to see her again.

*   *   *

JOSS'S TRAIN GOT
under way again, and accelerated to a high rate of speed.

A short while later, it came to another stop, and this time Joss could see why without being told. The relocation train had turned onto a sidetrack, but many of its boxcars at the rear were still on the main track, blocking it. To the right of the long train, he saw a huge containment camp, a fenced area where people were kept until reservation space could be found for them.

Doors on most of the green rail cars opened, and people streamed out of them, carrying their meager possessions. There were adults with children, and children carrying their little brothers or sisters. Joss recoiled in surprise and revulsion at the conditions he saw in the camp where they were being herded—a sprawl of improvised shacks and tents, with open sewage ditches running between them and children playing in the squalor. Couldn't the GSA government provide better facilities for its citizens? He'd never seen anything like this, hadn't imagined it could possibly be this bad.

“Kind of makes that dinner turn over in your stomach, doesn't it?” Sabe McCarthy said.

Joss felt like saying something too, but just stared out the window, disgusted and transfixed. He heard shouting that sounded like it was coming from inside his own train, from one of the forward cars. Just then the doors thumped open at the front of his car and a man in ragged clothing ran through, chased by two black-uniformed soldiers. One of the anarchists drew and fired, dropping the man in the aisle by Joss. The man wasn't dead and didn't appear to bleed, so they must have used a stunner on him. He looked groggy as they dragged him away and out of the coach. Joss saw a growing number of Revolutionary Guardsmen outside along the track, all wearing shiny black helmets with green tree emblems, and gleaming black jackboots.

“It's a wild, rough country out here,” Bim Hendrix said.

Now several more boxcars at the rear of the relocation train opened up, and Joss saw people pour and tumble out, shackled adults in prison garb. A few resisted and shouted protests, but to no avail. The others looked numb and stumbled along, doing as they were told. All were herded by the anarchists onto a barren, raised clearing.