Quarantine

so intense, but confused, that I can’t help being infected by his ambiguity.

He says, ‘I know what you’re going through. The inner battles, the paradoxes, the torment. I know.’ I don’t doubt him for a moment—and I feel a pang of guilt and unworthiness: his suffering at the cusp of the loyalty mod’s contradictions has clearly been a great deal worse than my own.

‘And I know you won’t thank me for adding to your pain. But the truth never comes easily.’

I nod idiotically at this platitude, while a detached part of me wonders: is this the next stage? A kind of masochistic wallowing in the conflict that the loyalty mod creates? Forcing myself to dwell upon my reason’s impotence—and romanticizing my distress into some kind of mystical, revelatory suffering? It makes a certain perverse sense: I don’t want to resent the mod—so why shouldn’t I try to view my mental turmoil in a different light, redefine its meaning, declare that it’s leading me towards deeper insight and stronger faith?

Lui continues, ‘We both want to serve the Ensemble—but what does that actually mean? Day by day we do our jobs, obey our instructions, play our part—hoping that those above us in the chain of command can be trusted to have the Ensemble’s best interests at heart. But the question you must ask yourself is: do they deserve that trust? Are they serving the Ensemble with the kind of absolute dedication that to you or me would be second nature… or are they merely serving their own interests? How can we be sure?’

I shake my head. ‘They’re part of the Ensemble. Our loyalty is to them—’

‘Part of the Ensemble, yes. Our loyalty is to the whole.’

I don’t know quite how to respond to that. It’s certainly true—in the sense that the mod refers only to the Ensemble, and not to any specific person. But why bother making the distinction? What practical difference does it make?

I shift in my chair, self-consciously; Lui leans towards me, his earnest young face glowing with a kind of intellectual urgency. Our loyalty is to the whole. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s constructed an entire system of moral philosophy around the effects of the loyalty mod—a prospect which makes me distinctly uneasy. It would hardly be the first time in history that a victim of mental illness has responded to their affliction that way—but it would certainly be the first time that I’ve found myself in the vulnerable position of sharing the brain-damaged prophet’s impairment, down to the last neuron.

I say, reasonably, ‘We all have to get orders from somewhere. We have to assume that the chain of command works. In practice, what alternative is there? I don’t even know what the upper-level management structure of ASR is—let alone the Ensemble. And even if I did, what are you suggesting? That I should only take instructions from the very top? That would be absurd. Everything would grind to a halt.’

Lui shakes his head. ‘I’m not saying that at all. Take your instructions from the top? There’s more than one “top”. Wei Pai-lingowns BDI, yes—’ I frown and begin to disclaim any knowledge of the man, or the acronym, but Lui says impatiently, ‘I know precisely how you joined us; there’s no point wasting your breath. Wei owns BDI—but what makes you think he’s in control of everything else? He has some limited influence over the other participants in NHK—but very little clout elsewhere. Did you think BDI found Laura Andrews?’

‘I suppose—’

‘Our hacking group in Seoul “found” her—working through a mountain of stolen data on breaches of security in International Services institutions—for another client altogether. But they were aware of an offer the Ensemble had circulated—good money, for data fitting certain patterns—so they passed the information on.’

‘Patterns? What patterns?’

‘I haven’t been able to find that out yet.’

‘Unexplained break-outs? I thought the Ensemble was formed after BDI stumbled onto Laura… but you’re saying the Ensemble already existed—and they were actively looking for someone like her?’

‘Yes.’

‘But how could they have suspected…?’

‘I don’t know — but that’s beside the point. The question is: where should your allegiance lie? Globally, Wei’s faction is in a minority. He had to bargain very hard to have BDI do the scanning of Laura Andrews—even though it was the closest appropriate facility. In the end, it was really only NHK’s regulatory vacuum that tipped the balance in his favour; most other countries police the relevant technology too tightly. But if a certain piece of legislation hadn’t been passed in Argentina, well… you and I might not even have been employed.’

I shake my head. ‘So what? I never assumed that Wei was in charge. The Ensemble is an alliance of different factions—why should that worry me? If they can live with each other’s differences, why can’t I?’

‘Because your loyalty is to the Ensemble—not to whichever faction happens to have manoeuvred itself into power. What if the alliance changes? What if it fragments, and re-forms with new goals, new priorities? Or, fragments and doesn’t re-form? To whom would you owe your loyalty then? Which splinter group would you fight for, if it came to that?’

I start to say something dismissive, but I catch myself. The Ensemble is the most important thing in my life; I can’t just shrug off questions like this, as if they weren’t my concern. But —

I say, ‘What can it actually mean, to be loyal to the Ensemble “as a whole”—if not to be loyal to the faction in power? It’s a good enough principle for governments—’ Lui snorts with derision. I say, Okay, I’m not suggesting that we should sink to the same level of cynicism. But what exactly are you suggesting? You still haven’t stated the alternative.’

He nods. ‘You’re right, I haven’t. First, I wanted you to concede that an alternative was necessary.’

I’m not sure that I’ve conceded any such thing, but I let it pass.

He says, ‘There’s only one group of people qualified to decide which of the factions—if any—truly represents the Ensemble. It’s a question that has to be judged with the utmost care—and it can’t possibly be a contingent matter of who is or isn’t in control at any given moment. Surely you can see that?’

I nod, reluctantly. ‘But… what “group of people”?’

‘Those of us with loyalty mods, of course.’

I laugh. ‘You and me? You’re joking.’

‘Not us alone. There are others.’

‘But—’

‘Who else can we trust? The loyalty mod is the only guarantee; anyone without it—wherever they are in the organization, even in the highest echelons—is at risk of confusing the true purpose of the Ensemble with their own private interests. For us, that’s impossible. Literally, physically impossible. The task of discerning the interests of the Ensemble must fall to us.’

I stare at him. ‘That’s—’

What? Mutiny? Heresy? How can it be? If Lui does have the loyalty mod—and I can’t believe that he’s faked all this—then he’s physically incapable of either. Whatever he does is, by definition, an act of loyalty to the Ensemble, because it hits me with a dizzying rush of clarity…

— the Ensemble is, by definition, precisely that to which the mod makes us loyal.

That sounds circular, incestuous, verging on a kind of solipsistic inanity… and so it should. After all, the loyalty mod is nothing but an arrangement of neurons in our skulls; it refers only to itself. If the Ensemble is the most important thing in my life, then the most important thing in my life, whatever that is, must be the Ensemble. I can’t be ‘mistaken’, I can’t ‘get it wrong’.

This doesn’t free me from the mod — I know that I’m incapable of redefining ‘the Ensemble’ at will. And yet, there is something powerfully, undeniably liberating about the insight. It’s as if I’ve been bound hand and foot in chains that were wrapped around some huge, cumbersome object—and I’ve just succeeded in slipping the chains, not from my wrists and ankles, but at least from the unwieldy anchor.

Lui seems to have read my mind, or at least my expression, brother in insanity that he is. He nods soberly, and I realize that I’m beaming at him like an idiot, but I just can’t stop.

‘Infallibility,’ he says, ‘is our greatest consolation.’

By the time Lui departs, my head is spinning—and like it or not, I’m part of the conspiracy.

The brain-damaged arbiters of the nature of ‘the true Ensemble’ call themselves the Canon. All have the