Tamika

Why do people lie? That’s simple. For a few, it’s a compulsion that serves mostly to entertain themselves. For most, though, a lie is told when it is of more benefit than the truth.

As I pulled up the government sheet for the day, the subjective benefit of lies was reinforced for me. The sheet was a list of scientific headlines pulled from the more obscure pages of the four major news outlets. I could tell at a glance that nearly all of the hottest headlines would come back from the Causal Engine as misleading or completely fabricated, because nearly all of them benefited some billion-dollar business in some way.

"Lie, lie, lie, misleading…" I said, scrolling my finger down each line, then stopping at one that made me laugh aloud. 

"Union employs extremists for hire, Aeciplus Director says”

This one got a bitter laugh out of me. Aeciplus was just one of hundreds of large corporations who shut down any attempt at organized labor by invoking the idea that the unions hired goons to turn protests violent. The protests did get violent, but the thought that any megacorp’s underpaid workers could hire mercenaries was ridiculous.

But that was the game: lie, deny, defy, repeat. It didn’t take a genius to make people want to believe your lies; you just had to convince them you had something they wanted.

I sputtered in despair as I looked at the next sheet. It was a message from the government liaison, informing me that On To Logic’s share of the verifier budget was being decreased. Everyone else’s was as well, but at the rate it was going, Looking Glass was going to be the last man standing. Maybe they'd continue on, or perhaps we'd all just go away, and Looking Glass would be the last on the chopping block.

I knew it was time to shake hands with the devil. I decided I'd talk to my liaison beforehand, thinking he might have something I could use to sweeten the deal, whenever I worked up the courage to cross that line in the sand.

******

Mateo, On to Logic’s government liaison, didn’t look up when I entered his office. I gave him a moment; I knew a tactical avoidance of eye contact when I saw it.

“Nothing I can do about the MPs, boss. All of this is coming by executive order,” He said, blowing out a nervous breath, “And…he’s got enough of the House in lockstep behind him.”

“The ‘war on truth,’” I said, with an intentionally dramatic tone.

“War for truth, if you believe his supporters.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah.”

We both smirked when we made eye contact. He’d only been here three months, but he knew the game long enough to know that truth for truth’s sake didn’t factor into any of this.

“Ready to quit?” I asked.

“Ugh…yes. I swear to every god in the pantheon, if I have to listen to Dunning’s press secretary give her ‘flaws in every estate’ speech one more time, I’m going to throw tomatoes,” Mateo groaned.

“What? Don’t like theater?”

“I love theater. I love good theater. Not this…” Mateo waved his arms in frustration, “Pretentious browbeating.”

“You know what they’re doing.”

“Yeah…yeah. ‘Small government.’ Anyways,” Mateo took another deep breath and put his professional face back on, “Within those constraints, anything I can do for you?”

“Constraints,” I chuckled, “I uh…I think we’ve gotta take up Looking Glass on their offer to merge.”

Mateo lowered his head in resignation.

“They offered to buy, not merge,” He said.

“That’s actually why I’m here. I know we’re not making it through with Dunning as PM, or his second term, because let’s be honest-”

“Yes, trains on time, and all that. Less said about that, the better,” Mateo cut me off. I decided not to call him on it; I didn’t want to have to look for a fifth government liaison for the year because I added another straw to the back of this already irritated camel.

“Sorry. I was saying…I can’t sell us as being worth enough money as a partner, that’s true. But if I can convince Masters she should be less worried about us, and more about our mutual problem at 10 Downing, we might live to fight another day,” I continued.

“I was whinging about the truth war. We can’t win that fight, boss,” Mateo said.

“I know. I don’t give a good goddamn what the troglodytes in the north believe; I just don’t want to starve.”

“God, and I thought I was jaded.”

“Just…give me something, Mateo. I need to convince her that she and hers are next.”

He sighed and sputtered, fixing his eyes on the wall in front of him. This conversation was pointless, we both knew. 

"I've got nothing you don't already know. Likely nothing Masters doesn't know, either. They have liaisons, too. Liaisons. Plural."

Mateo never let me forget that he was doing the work of a journalist, analyst and accountant, two of which we hadn't been able to employ for years. I didn't blame him for his irritation..

“What about the sugarcoaters? Any increase in their funding?” I asked. Mateo scoffed, looking somewhat amused.

“Prime Minister’s truth manufacturers getting kickbacks? We should be so lucky. I hope Dunning gets that stupid,” Mateo said.

“Under the table, then.”

Mateo nodded, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He looked like the soul was almost completely drained out of him.

“That’s how you know you’re the good guy, I suppose. When no one’s trying to bribe you, means they don’t think you’ll take it,” He said.

“Or they just don’t think you’ll be a good bagman,” I added. We both laughed, knowing we’d both take the money if it was ever offered to us.

“Well, I’ll be appealing to her self-preservation instinct, then,” I said, trying to keep my shoulders high. We both knew I didn’t have much chance of success, but appearances had to be kept.

There was a chance, slim though it was. I tried to keep my spirits up as I passed empty desk after empty desk. She would do everything she could to keep Looking Glass alive; I just hoped I could convince her that we could help with that.

******

There was a petty pleasure in convincing the prim, proper Maryam Masters to come to an American chain restaurant. I hadn’t been lying when I said that it was a good place to meet, unpopular as it was, but it still felt good to bring the high-society millionaire down to the level of the common people.

Maybe she saw that in the smirk I couldn’t completely keep off my face, because her steel expression faltered slightly, showing the intense irritation she felt at my summoning.

"Miss Hess," Maryam said, managing to keep her tone professional. She took her seat in the booth across from me, resisting the urge to take a passing gaze at the Americana. That was to her credit; the gaudy trinkets on every wall were designed to be unignorable.

"Ever had a burger that was more grease than meat? It's actually pretty good," I said as I looked at the menu, not actually reading it. She went still as a statue, and the next words out of her mouth were uncanny in their simultaneous calm and fury.

“This is a courtesy I’m extending you, Miss Hess. Please don’t abuse it,” She said. I had expected some venom in her words, but was still surprised by the intensity of it.

I took a pull from the glass of water, having apparently charmed her as I could. Directly to business, then; not a great start.

“We need to actually be what we’re pretending to be, Maryam,” I said. She nodded softly, not actually agreeing with me.

“You should sell while you still have the chance, Miss Hess. I’m one seller away from a majority stake,” Maryam said.

“You’re looking to get rid of us, snatch up more of the government sheets? Fine. But you know you’re Dunning’s public enemy number one. We’re all becoming endangered species; no one wants us around anymore.”

“55 percent of the UK still approves of our work. We’re not dead yet, and Dunning can’t stay on the throne forever. He’ll propose austerity, like every other bloody Tory, and the tides will change again.”

“And when it does, you’ll have no competitors.”

She picked up her glass of water and raised it in mock toast, then took a sip. To your bloody health, I thought.

“So the question you have to answer then, is if you’ll survive another term of Dun Dun squeezing us dry. There used to be hundreds of us, and now it’s little more than 20. Two years, and we’re almost gone, Maryam.”

More desperation had crept into my voice than I would have liked, but it was warranted. To my surprise, her face relaxed until it was nearly sagging. The extensive plastic work she’d had done to remain the timeless “matriarch of truth in media” showed, but only because the facade was now failing.

“We’re both beholden, Miss Hess,” Maryam said.

“To your shareholders?” I asked accusingly.

“Among others.”

I reached forward, grabbing her hand on impulse. Her eyebrows raised in surprise, but she didn’t shrink back.

“This…is…killing us, Maryam,” I emphasized every word, “All of us. Dunning has picked us off one by one, because we were too busy buying each other to keep our eyes on the prize.”

“Oh, don’t pretend this isn’t about money,” She said, leaning forward, delivering the barb so smoothly that it didn’t sound like an insult at all.

“I’m not. None of us can make money if the market disappears. We're about 970 cuts of the way through the thousand. We've made careers of pissing off everyone with money, and if this is taken from us, we're done. You think we won't be blacklisted from every corporate empire on Earth if we lose? You think we aren't already?"

I looked for any trace of humanity I could find, any drop of pity or discomfort in her expression, but that well was dry. 

"We have to circle the wagons, Maryam. Don't want to do it for me, fine. Do it for the thousand people in your 20 story building, who already worry about car bombs under their door handles. Don't make them deal with that and unemployment. Hell, forget car bombs, 10 percent of them will kill themselves so they don't have to live in the blockhouses."

There was no way that I could know if that number was accurate. It'd be bleak, undeniably, but this was a play for sympathy, and we both knew it. But she was too smart - and too cold - to fall for the emotional appeal. I'd lost the game that mattered.

To my surprise, she squeezed my hand. Though her expression didn't change, I could see a glimmer of pity behind her steel eyes. I had wanted it, but now that I knew she wouldn't give me what I needed, I resented this too-late sliver of humanity.

“You’re not wrong about us being blacklisted, Tamika. You’re…you’re more right than you know,” She said. The words were spoken so quietly that I almost didn’t hear them.

My eyes went wide, and I leaned in closer, eagerly awaiting another clue that I was sure would come. She must have seen that I had caught onto what she had let slip. Frustratingly, her face returned to stone before I could ask further.

“I’ll try to take on as many of On to Logic’s people as I can after this is over,” Maryam said, pulling her hand away. Fury returned, stronger than before, and I could feel my face growing flush.

“We’re not so few that we’ll all fit in your mailroom, Maryam,” I scoffed.

"What can I get started for ya?" The server said when she came to our table. Her dyed-blonde hair and her struggle to inflect a Kentucky drawl were probably just for her role at this tacky restaurant, but I was cautious around anyone I knew was putting on a performance. On instinct, Maryam and I went blank. We were now just two friends, out for a gluttonous lunch.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I began to reach for it, but stopped; no need to let Miss Kentucky have a free look at what she might have been hired to see.

Maryam was not so paranoid. She fetched hers from her purse quickly, and her face immediately turned to shock. The unrestrained emotion lasted several seconds, and we waited in awkward silence as the mood transformed.

I realized we must have both received messages at the same time.

“Um…if you’ll excuse me, I have to attend to something,” Maryam said, swiftly rising to her feet and nodding to both of us before rushing through the entrance in long, hurried strides..

“Well alright then,” The server said in her fake accent, “Anything for you, sweetheart?”

I couldn’t recall having fished my phone out of my pocket, but when I looked at the message on the screen, I couldn’t keep the wicked grin off my face.

“Just the appetizer, thank you,” I said as I put the phone away, “Then the check. It’ll be a busy day for me, too.”

I would need to get Sam into hiding for a few days, though.