Zendegi

Omar wanted to phone Rana. The protesters had managed to force open two offices with working landlines, but there were already long queues for those, so they decided to try the floor below. As the three of them were walking down the stairs, Martin’s phone emitted a chime he’d never heard before. He checked the display, and after a moment he realised that it was now showing an icon for the radio mesh network that he’d seen used at the Majlis protest. Someone must have found the local jammer and disabled it.

He showed Omar, who tried a few numbers, but the network was still jammed across most of the city. On the second floor one of the landlines was free; while Omar was making his call, Martin’s phone managed another novel sound. Someone on the network was offering a streaming video feed.

He tapped the icon, and it expanded into a shaky camera shot of a TV screen tuned to an IRIB news broadcast. Martin gave the phone to Behrouz.

Other people around them were already cheering ecstatically. Behrouz scowled, struggling to hear more. Martin waited patiently; there was a loop of text running at the bottom of the screen, it would all be spelled out eventually.

Behrouz said, ‘The moderate clerics have won some kind of deal. There’s going to be a referendum on the Guardian Council veto powers within three months, followed by new elections for the President and the Majlis before the end of the year.’

That was it, that was the saving move. If the deal held, there would be no civil war, but no turning back to the status quo either.

Omar was sitting on the floor, the office phone in his hand, weeping with joy. Behind him was a huge grey filing cabinet that someone had tipped on its side, spilling VEVAK’s meticulous accounts of their interrogations all over the floor. Maybe there hadn’t been enough time to put everything through the shredders. Or maybe the fuckers had thought they’d be coming back.

Martin turned to Behrouz and held out his hand. ‘Mubaarak.’ Behrouz shook it, but even as his expression of disbelief slowly melted into a kind of stunned acceptance, he wasn’t ready to claim victory.

‘Nothing’s certain yet,’ he insisted.

‘No,’ Martin conceded.

Behrouz smiled. ‘But it starts today. It might take us another ten years to be free – but it starts today.’

10

Nasim stared glumly across the sea of dinner jackets and evening gowns, trying to think of a way to escape to her hotel room before someone made yet another hypocritical speech in praise of Kourosh Ansari, President-elect of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

She turned to her mother. ‘I can’t believe I let you drag me down here. Half these people spent the last thirty years trying to get America to bomb their own country, just so they could go back and turn it into their own cosy little kleptocracy.’

‘That’s unfair!’ her mother replied. ‘A quarter of them at most. Anyway, that’s just the old men; you should be thinking about their sons.’

Nasim grimaced. ‘My idea of a romantic evening does not include a speech by Donald Rumsfeld at the Heritage Foundation.’

‘How many people have you actually spoken to tonight?’

‘Am I allowed to count waiters?’

‘Go and mingle.’ Her mother made a shooing gesture. ‘I didn’t buy you that dress so you could spend the night whining in my ear.’

Nasim left her and headed for the canapés. Amazingly enough, there’d been a vegetarian option, but it had been a quarter of the size of the other main courses and she was still famished.

As she stood at the buffet table trying to determine whether there was anything left that she could eat – other than garnishes – a voice beside her said, ‘Congratulations on your new President.’

‘Thank you.’ Nasim resisted the urge to add acerbically, ‘I do hope you’ll let us keep this one.’ She turned to face the speaker; the painfully thin young man looked familiar, but it took her a few seconds to place him. ‘Are you stalking me?’ she demanded. ‘Did you follow me to Washington?’

Caplan looked affronted. ‘Would you like to see my invitation? I’m a major donor to the Iranian-American Friendship Council.’

‘Since when? Three days ago?’

‘Six, actually.’

‘Six? A real futurologist.’ Nasim looked around for hotel security, but there was no honest complaint she could make that wouldn’t sound deranged and paranoid. ‘What exactly is it that you think I can do for you? Haven’t you heard the news about the HCP?’

‘Congress decided not to fund it.’ Caplan was stoical. ‘That’s sad, but it’s not unexpected. So there’ll be no big, coordinated federal project, but I’m sure you’ll still find grants here and there. I’ll be setting up my own foundation to help with that, though of course I can’t replace someone like Churchland.’

Zachary Churchland had died three weeks before and descended into the frosty limbo of an Alcor cryonic vault. He had left the bulk of his estate to the Benign Superintelligence Bootstrap Project, having finally concluded that he couldn’t trust his immortal soul to human hands.