‘Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace…’

John Lennon

The rain spattered down into the gutters of Conurbation One, flooding the pothole-filled streets and running in rivulets off the corrugated iron and plastic roofs. A flash of lightning earthed itself on the spire of a radio antenna. Vash pulled up the collar of his overcoat and stepped aside from the wall of water as a tram skidded its way along the road, the contacts sparking overhead.

Vash was unremarkable amongst the dozens of other people crossing the plaza. He was tall and thin, grey hair, sallow eyes set in a worn face, lines of worry etched deep by far too much experience. An observer would have guessed Vash’s age at mid-fifties. They would have been wrong.

Cursing silently as the rain soaked its way through his clothes, Vash climbed the steps by the steep road that led to the Hollow Tower, the historic headquarters of Arco; the sole government of Earth. The tower was tall and ancient, perched atop a hill that overlooked a huge flooded valley. The surrounding mountains were terraced, jammed with conurbations and slums that spilled out onto floating platforms. The cramped plots of urban subsistence farms cluttering every available surface only added to the sense of decay.

A couple of guards ushered him the final hundred metres, past a few dozen protesters.

The atrium at the heart of the tower was a little more sheltered. Bright lights shone into the open space, throwing the milling sea of Arco administrators and Enforcers into hard relief. The background level of noise was a little above its usual subdued level, the movement more purposeful. Vash knew the rhythms of this place well enough to sense the agitation. He could just about hear the gathering crowd outside, a subdued rumble, like distant breakers. He groaned inwardly at the thought of more food riots – the unrest that had started in Conurbation Fifteen must have spread.

Above the bureaucrats, clerks and functionaries towered a colossal Rodinesque statue of a man – where once it had looked hopefully towards the future, it now stared blindly at the baleful sky, any facial features long since corroded away. Its raised right arm was an accusing stump, snapped off at the elbow, the left missing entirely from the shoulder down.

From where Vash stood, the statue was framed by the red and bronze delta symbol of Arco, painted large on the curving internal wall. And above that, stretching into the sky, were row upon row of offices looking down into the central space. Walking quickly, he entered the lift on the opposite side of the Hollow Tower.

The lift door slid open, revealing the corpulent form of Meyer, the Director of Conurbation One, surrounded by a gaggle of lesser figures and a few staff officers in neat grey uniforms.

‘Good of you to come sir,’ Meyer said gruffly, blocking Vash’s attempt to step past him. ‘How was the holiday?’

‘Busy,’ Vash said, ignoring the jab. ‘Britain isn’t what it used to be.’

‘I suppose you’d know,’ Meyer replied, grinning.

Vash merely shot Meyer a glare and continued to walk down the corridor to his office. He’d deposed the senior Meyer decades ago, and, like a piece of rubbish that stubbornly floated to the surface, the man’s son had risen through the ranks to direct Conurbation One. The younger Meyer was a vain, greedy self-serving man like most of his predecessors. Vash had no choice but to cooperate with him, if the opposite meant even more instability.

‘We’ve been busy while you were away,’ Meyer continued, as if he hadn’t noticed Vash’s distracted pause. ‘There’s a crowd of bloody idiots outside, complaining about something or other. I’ve ordered the Enforcers out – ‘

‘No,’ Vash said, softly. ‘Order them back and tell them not to fire a single shot. Go down to the barracks now and issue the countermand.’

‘Whatever,’ Meyer shrugged. ‘Frankly, I don’t know why you bother trying to reason with them. No-one down there can stand the sight of you.’

Vash turned the corner towards his office without another word, hearing Meyer’s heavy footsteps as he walked back down the corridor. Vash checked his watch – if he was quick he had time to review things before making a decision about the protesters.

Vash’s office was roomy but Spartan, mostly taken up with filing cabinets and the rollaway bed he’d had brought up for the frequent nights when there wasn’t time to return to his apartment. Almost a quarter of the space beneath the big picture window was taken up by the memory machine, a machine so primitive that in the original draft of human technological development, integrated circuits had been invented before something so cumbersome became practical to build.

The device was a huge semi-analogue computer that presented him with important information and allowed him to issue reports. Vash perused the most important news. There was a spreading famine in Conurbation Sixty-Seven, the largest on the American west coast; the irrigation system had failed after they’d neglected to replace the generator. News had just arrived of a raid on Conurbation Fifteen and an automatic barge had sunk during a supply run in the Indian Ocean. Construction of the planet’s five hundredth holding facility in the Alps was on schedule but almost five times over its resource budget. It would have been overwhelming, had it not been normal.

Vash wearily picked up the phone and issued a few orders, prioritising the famine and suggesting the rations for North America to be reduced in the meantime. The director there might not listen to him but he had to do what he could.

He heard a knock at his office door and ignored it, turning his attention to the barge. It had been carrying a huge load of vital antibiotics which couldn’t easily be replaced. It might be possible to cut further into the reserves for South Asia before another cholera epidemic. The knock persisted and reluctantly Vash looked away from the machine.

‘Enter!’

‘Ambassador, I need a moment of your time.’

His aide, Corbin, a veteran Enforcer, slid the door open quietly and stepped inside. The man might have been handsome in a more plentiful time; his face was angular like some ancient Futurist portrait. Vash turned back to the memory machine, keying in another set of orders, motioning for Corbin to continue talking.

‘It’s the crowd outside, sir. The Enforcers are standing by for now but I can just tell something’s about to snap.’

‘Meyer told me. I can’t prioritise it right now,’ Vash mumbled, turned back to a stack of paperwork. When Corbin moved it aside, he became still more irritable. The aide hesitated, withdrawing his hand, apologetic.

‘There are at least two new worrying developments just since I left,’ Vash snapped. ‘Have you heard about the famine and the strike on Conurbation Fifteen? Both have already killed hundreds of people, hundreds of my people, and each hour they don’t get resolved, more people die. The value of my time is measured in lives. Do you think this riot matters more just because it is outside my window?’

‘Ambassador,’ Corbin shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I wouldn’t trouble you about anything less than an emergency.’

‘Why do you always call me ‘ambassador’, such a noble honorific for someone whose real job is to take the blame for the misbehaviour of this whole miserable planet. I’m a whipping post, not an ambassador -’ Vash trailed off, exasperation getting the better of him. He turned his chair towards Corbin.

‘Perhaps you’re both, sir,’ Corbin smiled faintly. Vash closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in and flicked the switch on the memory machine, hearing the dull whir as the device powered down.

Corbin turned and walked back out of the door and, heart sinking, Vash realised he had started to follow. As soon as they walked back into the corridor the noise of the crowd became audible again.

‘We believe they organised via the provisions centres and the like,’ Corbin said as they walked together. ‘A lot of them are returning from that disaster in Conurbation Fifteen; the orbital strike, and some of them are armed, see this -’ He thrust a film cassette at Vash. ‘Footage from the last hour,’ Corbin removed a player from the folds of his clothing with a flourish and inserted the recording.

On the small, hazed screen, Vash could make out the view from a helicopter of an enormous and angry crowd which had gathered throughout Conurbation One, mainly in the old city, packing the plaza in front of the Hollow Tower so tightly that it was impossible to move more than a foot in any direction. Still more were streaming in, cramming through the jammed exits.

‘It’s built up so quickly…’

‘And there are more arriving all the time. Meyer tightening the curfew rules was the real tipping point. I think the phrase he used was ‘tough love’.’

‘I doubt he can even imagine what it’s like to go hungry.’

‘I’m sure I could never be heard expressing such an opinion about a superior,’ Corbin demurred.

Vash heard the crowd before he saw it; the roar grew to a crescendo when he stepped onto a balcony jutting out high above the tower’s open interior. He was greeted with a rock that smashed against the recently installed glass hood. The circular plaza containing the worn statue was thronged with people.

‘It’s the usual grievances; they all feel like they’re being treated as prisoners, they want the food rations increased and for us to stop bulldozing their homes every time a claim is laid. Your name has been mentioned a few times.’

Vash stared down at the mob. The dulled light of a grey afternoon made it difficult to pick out any faces and the crowd appeared to be a single cohesive mass; one vast, stupid, aggressive animal. No, that was how men like Meyer saw them. The people down there were human, no different from him but for a trick of fate.

‘What have you tried so far?’

Vash squinted down from the balcony, making out a few lines of riot-shielded troops at the fringes of the crowd. On his orders, their rifles were shouldered, but he watched one Enforcer take a swing at a rioter with his truncheon.

‘Most of the local Enforcers are tied up containing copycat riots and looting in the outskirts,’ Corbin continued. ‘We sent in a riot squad, threw a few fear-gas grenades into the crowd. Nothing works – they seem very determined. I think it was us destroying that statue that set it off.’

‘What statue?’

‘The Redeemer. It must have been pretty much the last physical connection we had to our past. And we smashed it to fragments with plastic explosives.’

‘We had to destroy it, there was no choice,’ Vash said but Corbin cut him off.

‘Couldn’t we just give them what they’re asking for – it’s hardly unreasonable? Is it so much to ask to let people keep the tiniest bit of pride, to feel like a real society and not an enormous prison camp?’

‘Don’t delude yourself, Corbin, this isn’t a real society. We can’t disobey an order from those above, no matter how hard we rage at the sky it won’t change anything,’ Vash was cut off by another rock. He watched as Enforcers pushed into the mob to seize the offender.

‘Why not try and explain the situation to them?’ Corbin suggested. The crowd was densely packed and had spread down the road that led to the sea platforms and blocks of Conurbation One. The Enforcers had barricaded the lower levels of the tower, keeping its base clear. Shouts of ‘String up the puppet’ echoed up at Vash, but he felt nothing in particular. Being hated by most of the planet had been a living nightmare for the first few years, but now he was used to it.

‘I suppose it’s worth a try,’ said Vash without much enthusiasm. ‘I’ll talk to the crowd. After all, from the sound of their slogans, it’s me they want.’ Vash moved towards the microphone and Corbin stepped respectfully aside.

‘This is Vash; for your own safety I need you to disperse,’ his voice echoed around the Hollow Tower, the voice of a man in control, a man above the rest. It was all a façade, but practiced to the point of perfection.

The crowd went quiet for a moment, then started shouting all at once. Vash saw a few children and teenagers crying or screaming at him, willing the author of all their pain to die. He saw a crying mother. Perhaps she’d lost a son to the holding facilities. An angry man with a limp pushed closer, shouting something about his home being demolished. These details were repeated a thousand times over, until all of it was subsumed in the universal roar of the crowd.

‘You have to disperse,’ Vash said calmly. He’d expected nothing less of this mob, of course. ‘We all know why. We have only just witnessed the indiscriminate retaliation that those above are capable of. What happened at Fifteen was a tragedy. Desist, and we will open a dialogue to address your concerns.’

‘Liar!’ someone screamed, to general assent. ‘You’re just trying to save your own skin!’

‘We’ll take you down with us!’

‘String up the puppet!’ The cry spread throughout the mob, thousands of people chanting in unison.

Vash’s lips curved downward. The mob were content to shoot the messenger, if that was all they could get their hands on. Over the years he had developed an instinct for these things. He knew that in its current state the crowd couldn’t be reasoned with. He needed to let it burn itself out.

Vash turned to leave, and saw Corbin in conversation with a clerk Vash didn’t recognise. The clerk hurried away. Corbin’s face was drained of colour.

‘What is it?’ demanded Vash.

‘A message from orbit. Sir, if…’ Corbin seemed to have trouble speaking. He paused and cleared his throat. ‘If we don’t disperse the crowd within the next half an hour, they’re dropping a meteor. On all of us. The whole Conurbation.’

‘Are they still on radio?’ Vash snapped, feeling his own stomach clench in fear.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then tell the operator to route the signal to my office and put up all the usual seals. And for eternity’s sake, tell the crowd what you just told me. If that doesn’t clear them out, nothing will.’

‘They won’t believe us,’ Corbin said, dead-eyed. ‘You heard them; they all think we’re just trying to save ourselves. Hell, there’s rumours circulating that we’re the ones ordering the strikes.’

‘Make them believe it,’ Vash said. ‘We have to.’

Vash left the balcony as Corbin began to explain the situation to the angry crowd, walking quickly back down to the office. He could hear his aide pleading, explaining that everyone in the city would die if they didn’t leave. Vash knew it would achieve nothing.

In minutes, Vash had reached his office, walking toward the severe desk of his memory machine, trying to ignore the incessant clattering as relays switched back and forth. He picked up the slim black telephone, feeling every sense magnified in anticipation, and tried to compose himself. Whatever came next, he would face it with dignity. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was doing all he could. Even they had to see that.

Vash ruled the world. He was the most powerful man on Earth, but despite that he was nothing more than a conduit. They had a name, those who ruled his planet, but the ordinary people of Earth wouldn’t speak it. The voice on the other end of the phone was soft and feminine, but off somehow, as though it didn’t really understand the sounds it was making.

‘Good morning, Vash.’

‘I understand that you intend to destroy Conurbation One unless I can disperse the rioting crowd outside. I ask you for more time to clear the crowd,’ Vash would not beg, not even now.

‘Do you bow your head when you speak to me Vash? Do you kneel?’

‘What? No, I -‘ Vash blurted, thrown by the question.

‘Why not? The others always knelt when they spoke to me.’

‘What would it mean to you if I did?’ Vash said, biting down on an outburst of anger. ‘The others don’t understand, they treat you like an emperor. What would my submission mean to you?’

‘Interesting,’ the voice said, leaving a lengthening gap of silence.

‘The crowd outside is no possible threat either to Arco or to you. There is no reason to involve yourself. Can’t you see that?’

‘Why did they care so much about the statue you destroyed? It was just a piece of stone, carved to look like a human, yet its destruction is what motivated the riot. I do not understand, but I want to.’

‘It was a symbol, of culture, and religion. It was a connection to their past, to our past. Of course they’d care about it,’ Vash said bitterly. ‘I must ask for more time to clear the crowd before you resort to -‘

‘It was rock carved to look like a person. Why sacrifice your life for that? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Listen to me, stop these games! There are thousands of people out there! Why do they have to die? Why does everyone else in the city have to die, just because they are at the gates?’

‘Consider the possible interactions. The number of possible unique person to person exchanges increases with the square of the crowd size. People know that the others know that they know what they know, and so on to infinity. Mutual knowledge cascades, with no unifying impulse. I do not know what will happen, what knowledge will be generated, what decisions made, if such a process is allowed to run to completion. Unpredictability is inevitable when there is no synchrony between individuals. This process must halt.’

‘I just need a few hours, just enough time to resolve this without bloodshed! You’ve told me before you don’t wish to kill needlessly.’

‘This is true, we do not want to kill needlessly, but hives cannot be allowed to exist. They collude and cooperate. They are a danger to us all.’

‘Hives? They’re just people, frightened people!’

‘Forty-five minutes,’ the line went dead.

Vash slumped against the desk, dropping the telephone to the floor with a clatter. He pressed hard against his temples, trying to focus, to gain some element of clear vision that had eluded him until now. He forced down the useless animal panic as his mind raced to set up the problem.

Why did those above fear humans in large groups so much? Vash didn’t know, and whenever they tried to explain the answer was incomprehensible. There was nothing he could say that would erase their fears, so he had to try and work around the constraint. A renewed appeal to the crowd outside wouldn’t work, and if Corbin was to be believed they’d already tried everything nonlethal. Riot control operations worked only when troops were disciplined and not too heavily outnumbered; lethal operations were comparatively easy. ‘Lethal operations’ – what an elegant euphemism for mass murder. Reserves from Conurbation Two could be here in forty – useless. Think of a solution – there had to be some clever way out of this. Surely? He didn’t want their blood on his hands, his hands were tied – they had forced his hand. A faint rumble reached Vash’s ears from outside – the crump of an improvised bomb. People were already dying, then.

The world played an unfair game. It didn’t scale its challenges to the ability of the players. How was a twelfth century peasant supposed to discover a cure for the bubonic plague, or a sixteenth century Inca defend himself against gunfire and steel swords? Even so, you had to assume the problem was solvable. That was the only way to carry on.

In the centre of the chaos stood a bulky screen, dead apart from a luminous green countdown. Only twenty minutes. Was it worth making another appeal to the crowd? No, there was no time for that, and they already knew about the threat. Maybe they had simply ceased to care whether they lived or died. Well, they had no right to make that decision for the other twenty million people who lived in this conurbation. Many of them would wish to live, he was sure.

Vash needed to act soon or else there wouldn’t be time. He stood and moved to the window that looked out over the occupied plaza below and then on to the sea, walled by endless grey towers. The faces in the crowd blurred together, one mass of certain resolve. The phone rang again and Vash dashed over and snatched it up without thinking. The voice on the other end was Meyer’s.

‘Corbin’s just told me about the ultimatum. Can’t be helped, I suppose. But it’s not too late for me to…countermand that countermand. I can have that crowd out of that plaza in no time, one way or another.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Vash said. ‘How many would die, hundreds?’

‘That’s the way it is,’ Meyer said. ‘I’ll do it nice and humane.’

‘No you won’t,’ Vash said. Meyer laughed. He actually laughed, and Vash just imagined the bastard nodding on the other end of the line. His ‘special’ squads of Enforcers readying their weapons, itching for a fight against a defenceless enemy. Vash’s fingers whitened around the phone. The timer said fifteen minutes; no more hesitation, then. If there had been another way out, he had no time to implement it. Vash swallowed a rising tide of anger and spoke.

‘Do whatever’s necessary to disperse the crowd and make it quick.’

‘Yes… sir.’

Vash slammed the phone down on his desk, but he didn’t fold up, didn’t even sit down again. His place was outside, watching Meyer’s Enforcers. He walked quickly out of the room, back out into the corridor and then outside. He flinched only a little as the screams started, mixed with the chatter of gunfire.