If I let things stand where they are, Roze will press for Data Haven to do nothing in the upcoming conflict. I need to get the hackers to a more favorable position before Cleve convenes this council. “This Morgan Industries move against the Stepdaughters of Chiron, the one that’s going to march an army overhead, is partially Data Haven’s responsibility,” I tell Roze. “Data Haven was complicit in the recent Stepdaughters of Chiron actions against Morgan Industries.”
“Now, what Stepdaughters of Chiron actions would those be?” Roze asks.
“Dr. Citali had a virus to sabotage one of Morgan’s factories. She did not write that virus herself. Somebody in Data Haven—a hacker in Data Haven—wrote that virus.”
“A hacker in our own Data Haven?” Roze says melodramatically. “Why, I never!” Their antics, though, are to cover their disquiet at this news.
“That event is one of Morgan’s rallying cries for sending this Planetary Security Force out, and some hacker here is partially responsible for that.” To soften the accusation, I offer a tantalizing treat to the excitement-starved Roze. “I’m sure that making that computer program was probably a fun and interesting activity for one of your hackers, and there are other such opportunities waiting in the wings. I’d be happy to talk with you later about Morris’s plans in the domes, once we’ve settled this matter.”
“I wasn’t aware that code was going to be live tested,” Roze admits, revealing that they wrote it themself. “I thought it was just a simulation. Dr. Citali was interested in seeing what would happen…”
“You know, Morris told me that you sent a message to him through the network node,” I mention.
“Yeah?” It’s not a challenge, it’s an acknowledgement accompanied by a so-what.
“But when we were planning the job, you told us the tap simply downloaded data and that nothing would be uploaded,” I continue, pointing out Roze’s own duplicity. “You had us upload things without telling us.”
Roze fiddles with their headpiece. “Strictly speaking, Morris knew to download from our implant a little server that we’ve got running on it. We didn’t push anything out, he pulled from.” I shake my head at that, completely failing to suppress an eye-roll at the semantics here. “Also, I didn’t think you’d care to know about the intricacies of computer network communication, Mariah. If you’d like to talk about that more… No? Well, yes, there’s a little bit more going on there, but if you were delivering a virus, there’s also a little bit more going on there that you didn’t tell us.”
“My point is, we didn’t know each other before. In either direction. But I want some transparency here—from both sides—going forward. I want you to be level with me. When we first showed up, you said that Data Haven was maybe doing some stuff with the Stepdaughters of Chiron, but you didn’t know how well that was going to work out. The time has now come to decide. Are you allied with them or not?”
Roze frowns at me. “Seems to me like you’ve instigated a lot of this yourself, Mariah. You’re putting the blame on us for that virus? You’re literally the one who implanted it. And you’re the one who’s taking the initiative to work very closely with the Stepdaughters of Chiron. We, especially among the hackers, are taking a wait-and-see approach.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “A wait-and-see approach?! The time has come to see! That time is now.” After a beat, I add more quietly, “And yes, I agree with what you just said. I accept responsibility for my part. But Morgan was going to do this anyway.” Cleve’s words to me in the dome are a comfort again. “We all saw that flyer. Before the virus to bring down the factory was uploaded. And anyway, this would have happened without me. Whoever you were sending on that job, Marina would have talked with them. Dr. Citali is part of your society here. People here—some people, at least—support what she’s doing. It’s not like I was the linchpin for this happening. Though I accept that I did do this, and what happened at that factory is my fault.”
“There’s no shortage of blame to go around,” Roze agrees.
Into the silence that follows, Cleve says, “And this is why we need to have some sort of leadership! When two people come in and don’t know what’s going on,” he indicates himself and me, “it seems like everybody is together. So I second the call for transparency. We can’t have one hand doing something that the other doesn’t know about. Now we’re seeing what the repercussions of that can be.”
Roze nods. They’re reluctant about being on the Council of Datajacks themself, but they agree to it. And they agree not to support inaction. For now, I’ll have to be content with that weak position.