If there’s something that Balkhis dreaded the most, it surely would be an inquiry about direction on a freezing mid-January morning in thickly-accented Finnish by an oddly-enthusiastic foreigner standing on the sidewalks of Balkh’s busiest avenues. There were quiet grumbles inside some of their minds on why he hadn’t equipped himself with noospheric interfaces that could’ve easily guided him to his destination, although a handful pitifully sympathized to his clueless, youthful face that emerges from a knitted wool cap, with pale blue eyes and strands of blond hair jutting out, and a body that awkwardly towered at least a shoulder above most others in the crowd. Nonetheless, with excuses firmly made up in their heads, they passed through while hurriedly ignoring the foreigner’s polite but increasingly exasperated query.
Above them, panels flickered with advertisements or news—the most recent obsession for the coverage being a recent explosion in the adjacent international port of Bamigan, which apparently flattened much of the port and hurtled away half of the adjacent neighborhoods in broken glass and bent concrete, provoking worried whispers even among the apathetic Balkhis, many of whom owned suburban seaside residences in the beaches of Bamigan with its ancient temples and decadent resorts. Bactra Services, the corporate authorities for Bamigan and much of Balkh metropolitan area, had declared an entire day of mourning in their territories, and weeklong in the city of Bamigan as they scrambled to figure out the problem. But that was yesterday, and life in Balkh had recovered since. There were even wayward foreigners milling around, ignorant of proper customs and matters of courtesy.
Frey Lönnqvist was conscious of his impression as an ignorantly unprepared, barbarous stranger suddenly thrown into an ambivalent metropolis. But he didn’t have much choice in this matter—his transfer from the Talecton branch of Balash & Company, one of Valkia’s largest management consulting firm, to its original office in Balkh was announced just yesterday by the HR department, and they confirmed that it was a clear now-or-never option. Refusal almost came out of Frey’s mouth for this outrageously Mesovalkian labor practice—that he’s not even sure if actually legal—until he took a glance at the salary offer: quintuple his entry-level analyst wage not including benefits, bonuses, and promised regular pay raises.
They sure knew how to lure someone into a devil’s pact.
So Frey hurriedly packed up a handful of clothes and appliances before he rushed to Mikael Korlav for a short flight. This alone wasn’t much of a problem—as a bachelor he didn’t have much things around anyway, and one of the benefits promised was immediate permanent residence accommodation. Obviously he didn’t have time to prepare for any tech stack adjustment, though, beyond an asomniac pill that he immediately gulped down upon arrival just in case that his new management was a sleepless sort—a plausible expectation from the offered wage.
But Frey wasn’t one of the youngest recruits for nothing. Even without Babel-headwires wrung inside the skulls of most Darussalamis, he was already a fluent speaker of at least seven Mesovalkian dialect standards. He vaguely familiarized himself with local customs in hours and correctly surmised that no self-respecting native in Balkh will stop for his assistance, hence his constant inquiry in Finnish in hoping that one of his fellow compatriots or expatriates, of whom he knows there are numerous in this city, will respond.
The problem is that apparently Core Barboneians were even less inclined to humor him. His very first plan is ruined.
“Mister, Mister,” a young woman called him half-giggling after nearly twenty minutes had passed. Frey turned to her immediately. “You can take the metro from there,” she pointed to a distant direction where the crowd visibly thickened, clearly bottlenecked before descending to the depth of the metro station. She now switched entirely to Finnish despite her clearly native appearance, although in a more stilted and formal manner as typical of software-mediated speech. “Get off at Aghrasieh Station. You’ll be in Kashkak Avenue immediately upon exiting.”
So there was it. Frey mouthed a heartfelt gratitude to the woman, waving and yelling a xejlij səpasgozaram to her before rushing to the station.
===
“Mr. Frey Lönnqvist?” An ethereal figure that masked a language model addressed him in perfect Dari dialect of Parchavi from the reception desk of Balash & Company’s Balkh office in Afrasiab Tower, their colors ebbed and flowed with time, the lights that danced on their surface almost reflected living skin and flesh. “Ayyar-çelebi has been waiting for your presence in his office on the 6th floor.”
“Thank you very much,” Frey said hurriedly before crossing the warmly-lit, amber-hued lobby to the elevator vestibule, cutting off the artificial receptionist’s last words and failing to pay attention as they mouthed a small “but…”. Right at that moment he was first and foremost driven by one worry: a minute lost and he’d be late on his first day in his new office, and God alone knows how the Darussalamis will respond to such a matter. Immediately as the ornate silver-plated calligraphy of the elevator’s door plates receded, he rushed in and mashed the button for the sixth floor.
The sixth floor of Afrasiab Tower was lit in faint marigold against the interior awash in shades of teak, its floor wholly covered with thick rugs, its low ceilings only a slight arm’s reach away from Frey ornate in ethnic-esque colorful geometric tessellations. Frey scanned through the opaque-windowed enclosed rooms that lined up its hallways, reading out nameplates written in angular Arabic-descended script of Mesovalkia, the Munfasili—until he recognized one of his prospective superior’s taxallus—literary name—engraved on it, Ayaz.
Perhaps against his better judgment, driven by anxiety of not wanting to arrive late on the first day, he knocked and opened the door.
The room inside was similarly themed as the hallways outside, although now with tall rectangular windows that led to the scenery of bustling skyscrapers of Kashkak Avenue outside. Within the room, there were only two people talking on a L-shaped divan—one reclined lazily, while another was sitting upwards in a mildly uncomfortable position. Two cups of coffee were placed on a small tray atop a mahogany table in front of them. Neither noticed Frey as he stood awkwardly at the door’s threshold, unsure whether to announce his presence. The one who reclined was a dark-skinned man that appeared to be in his early twenties, youthfully handsome with skin hued in deep bronze, slender but toned figure and eyes that flicker in flamelike colors like a predatory bird. Next to him was someone that was clearly a boy—he cannot possibly be older than twenty, but Frey knew it wasn’t true, because he recognized his face in the pictures, his pale porcelain-like skin, eyes hued in indigo, a lithe figure. This was Mr. Ayyar that he was looking for.
Frey knew that Darussalamis welcome their guests on a divan, but there was something wrong with the current setup. The host is supposed to be the one reclining, while the guest honored him by sitting upwards. Or perhaps it was a different norm if it was with a business client?
And then there was the way they talked. Frey might have learned for himself a mastery in various Mesovalkian dialects, but the chatter of both men still threw him off his guard. He recognized most of their lexicon, but it’s as if they belonged to many different languages thrown together and sintered according to some indecipherable rules—one time they exclaimed in perfect Barboneian Finnish, then throwing North Lander allegorical agglutinations, then using entirely Arabic-Parchavi vocabulary assembled with particles and rules of Kayaese grammar. This, he rapidly realized, is the simplified, more businesslike version of the garbled tongue of Mesovalkian posthuman mystics. It took him a few seconds to understand most of the composite sentences.
“A few dozen found dead so far … ammonium nitrate chain reaction trigger … Bamigan authorities are furious.”
So that was what they were talking about. Once Frey pieced together the puzzle, he followed the conversation much more easily.
“And you said,” the boyish man said slowly, his voice far deeper than the age belied by his appearance. “That you encountered this Aberdeen woman on the day of the incident.”
“Yes.” The reclining man replied. “Victoria Aberdeen, the president of the Shipwrights and Dockworkers Union, the largest workers organization that represents longshoremen of the North Lands and the Commonwealth, the largest lobby against containerization reform in—”
“I’ve had preliminary research, I know who [she] is.” He remarked nonchalantly, using an extremely degrading and insulting form of feminine pronoun in Kayaese dialect that caused Frey to gasp, utterly failing in attempting to contain its audibility. Both immediately turned to him, eyes sharply locked, and it was as if they looked at a cockroach that suddenly entered their presence.
“And you are…?”
Frey immediately straightened himself and offered a formal bow. “Good morning, Mr. Ayyar. I’m Frey Lönnqvist, from Talecton’s branch of Balash & Company, and I’ve been transferred here at your request. I hope I can be of—” He paused immediately, shutting himself up as he noticed Ayyar’s boyish, pale face contorted in deathly glare and realized there’s something wrong.
“Right now, you’re talking to Ayaz.” He said coldly. “Ayyar isn’t here.”
“Oh.” Dread and confusion started to creep up Frey’s mind. Aren’t they the same person? Did he get it wrong? Wrong room, maybe? No wonder they didn’t seem to anticipate his presence. What did the receptionist attempt to tell him, again? “I see, then… I’ll excuse myself—”
“Why would you?” Ayaz cut him off, half-yawning, now in fluent Barboneian Finnish, although his tone of disdain was still yet to recede. “It’s true, I was the one who requested your transfer. Frey Lönnqvist, Talecton office, dean’s list graduate, five years of employment in Balash & Company, recommended for high performance indicators. Correct?” He pointed to the cups on the tray in front of him, which were now apparently nearly empty. “Go and make me another coffee. The machine’s just right there.”
Frey froze for a moment, attempting to grasp the situation, and then immediately dismissed it—thinking too much might as well be a risky decision now. He nodded, approached the table and picked up the tray. He noticed that the reclining man’s eyes followed him, now glimmered in curiosity and friendliness, although he couldn't help but felt the amity to disguise poison. “Would you also like another cup of coffee, Mister…?”
“Call me Shahin,” he said with a faint grin. “And no, thanks. But this one likes his coffee black. So make sure of that.” He pointed to Ayaz, and gave him a knowing look. Frey immediately went to the coffee machine. “I didn’t know you’re having another appointment today. I’d have postponed this if I knew.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Ayaz said in flat exasperation.
“That is correct.” Shahin replied with a triumphant smile. “Then, to continue—you said you've done preliminary research.”
“Yes. Victoria Aberdeen, prior enlistment in the Commonwealth Navy, record of insubordination and impulsive personality, currently presiding over the Commonwealth’s Shipwrights and Dockworkers’ Union, an organization founded solely to sustain freeloaders and parasites rendered invalid and traumatized by decades of self-inflicted warfare with hole-digging employment of loading cargoes manually in this year of our prophet. Preexisting mental issues or problems of unknown identification.” Ayaz paused. “This means that you are suspecting her involvement with the incident. Any evidence aside from just a hunch?”
“You see, I have no problem with her ilk!” Shahin extended his arms, seemingly ignoring Ayaz’ remark, although it was implicit affirmation nonetheless. “There’s nothing wrong in itself in desiring more for yourself, even if they do so at the expense of others…”
“To do so, however, is the mark of a lowly creature.” Ayaz remarked.
“But—I might be a lot of things, Ayaz, but I’m not stupid.” His voice turned low, his expression shifted like a predator that identifies prey from afar. “I know that she’s the one who did it. The ignorant barbarians never bothered to conceal their expressions, never refined themselves with the art of noble lie and manipulation. Her entire appearance screamed deception and complicity. Pennington and Thaddeus might be fooled, being similarly ignorant and barbarous they are, but I don’t. And it all makes perfect sense. It was clear from the beginning that the idea of using Turtleshroomer labor beyond the Union’s purview actively bothered her. But we all thought of her as—far less recklessly dangerous, back then.” The flamelike lights on his eyes dance on Ayaz’. “What do you think?”
Ayaz paused, and thought for a moment.
"It is entirely plausible that the troglodytic, mass-murdering whore and her band of pestilential bloodsucking parasites arranged the incident as an act of industrial sabotage to prevent the disruption of their stranglehold over the shipping lanes of Three Continents. The motives certainly match. However, neither would I overestimate the cranial capacity of South Landers, who have evolved themselves into sophisticated simple-mindedness, living a lifestyle of compliant vegetative piety for their better lot. I would be surprised if they can competently operate a lever, let alone handle multiple cargoes of dangerous chemical substances." He said matter-of-factly, as if he hadn't fired off degrading remarks to multiple nations in a rapid succession. “Or that the blame, for that matter, can be pinned down for the company which executive decisions are so baffling as to actually consider hiring those miserable animals instead of leaving them alone in wretched poverty as you ought to have.”
Shahin groaned. “You don’t get it! We’re not cutting costs for nothing! How much do you think we have spent on paying everyone else—tariffs, taxes, duties, bribes, pay raises? And we can barely even fire anyone lest their savage kin will raise hell. Business is meant to be profitable, and it's more difficult to make profitable businesses outside, I tell you. Everyone from the Navy, the unions, the aristocracy, to the lowliest border patrols and custom officers all wanted their fair share of the pie, and we’re left with almost nothing.”
“And yet,” Ayaz continued, sighing. “Even if she’s actually guilty, I’m afraid that this woman and her ilk are a lot more intelligent than you’re willing to credit them. The odds are in their favor—Bamijan Port Authorities have declared the investigation to be entirely in the purview of their shurta in cooperation with Scales of Justice and the Association of Northern Courts, and without substantial evidence, it is quite difficult to point finger at the SDU, especially given their…. association with many trading and commodity-exporting companies with vested interests in the Commonwealth and North Lands.”
“Oh?” Shahin’s expression turned into that of a slight surprise. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not looking to pursue SDU specifically, although yes, that will be preferable.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “I’m looking for a way out for me, and the rest of the company if possible, without dijat and kisas breathing down our necks. Entirely within the bounds of the Law, if you so please. There’s nothing in Law that obliges us to the litany of nonsensical exploitation and extortion schemes from the savages. Our concern is first and foremost to the victims of the explosion in the port. They have every right and legitimacy to cry blood.”
“Hmm.” Ayaz paused for a moment, seemingly in accelerated deep-thought. Then, abruptly, “Where’s the coffee?”
“It’s here, Mr. Ayaz.” Frey rushed into the divan, bringing a fully-filled, thickly-scented cup. In truth, Frey had debated to himself on how black the coffee is supposed to be, before finally settling down with a thin sliver of sugar on the teaspoon out of fear of overcorrecting. After all, better a coffee slightly on the sweeter side of your preference than extremely on the bitter side, right?
Ayaz took the cup and gulped down.
And spat it out.
“It’s sweet!” He coughed up and glared at Frey, who now cowered in fear. Shahin loudly cackled, giving Frey a look of what did I say? “I can’t taste the coffee at all.” He stuck his tongue out in disgust. “Scratch that, don’t make coffee from now on. You’re absolutely useless on that.”
He turned back to Shahin. “Very well, then. Find Lord Pennington and arrange a date. Our team will deliver a set of analysis and recommendations shortly. How long do you want—”
“As fast as possible, preferably less than a week.” Came the rapid answer.
“Then, this weekend.” Ayaz made weaving motions with his fingers—storing something in the neocortex through the augmented mediation, Frey recognized immediately.
“How about Mister Thaddeus—?”
Ayaz paused. “Is he the one who advised the employment of Turtleshroomer labor?” Shahin nodded. “Then, not yet. Maybe later, but not for now. And don’t let him catch anything about our meeting. We’ll prepare a double presentation just to be sure, but for now—it’s preferable that you’re not giving him any sort of knowledge about our progress at all.”
Shahin’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, interesting. I really, really don’t want to doublecross my associate, though.”
“Any of our recommendations will be strictly done under the legitimacy of the Law.” Ayaz stated flatly. “Our Law, at least.”
“Excellent. I know I can trust you.” Shahin now stood, revealing himself as quite a tall figure only slightly below Frey’s own massive posture, his expression brimming with satisfaction. “Now, I might have overstayed my welcome, so I’ll depart now so both of you can continue with your arrangements.” He approached Ayaz, who also stood, and only now that Frey realized how short he is—probably no taller than 165cm. Shahin glanced towards Frey in an expression that made him somewhat uncomfortable, bent himself forward slightly, and whispered several words to Ayaz’ left ear.
Frey couldn’t quite identify what those words are, but it was sufficient to drove Ayaz into fury. He swiftly drove away Shahin as his mocking laughter reverberated throughout the hallway.
===
“Well?” Ayaz turned towards Frey after his anger to Shahin somewhat receded. “What do you think?”
The question startled Frey. “I–I’m sorry?”
Ayaz sighed. “Don’t mistake me for a fool, kid. I know you’re listening throughout the entire conversation and understand every single word. I used three different languages to call you out in that sentence alone. Did you realize that?”
Frey only now did realize that, and he kept his mouth shut for a moment, seemingly in doubt. That someone that looked far younger than him called him 'kid' didn't help, either. As if sensing it, Ayaz waved his hand.
“I know that you know what we’re talking about, and I’m letting you pry our conversation deliberately. You’re not in trouble for listening to what you’re not supposed to or anything—there’s no such thing around here. You see, your kind of work in Talecton—here, it’s easily solvable by feeding the data to angelminds and waiting until they churn out bruteforced solutions. If it comes to identifying patterns in data, not even my brilliant mind is a match to them.” He didn’t even pause for a moment to consider he just called his own mind brilliant. “Our work here is going to be a lot more… non-deterministic and stochastic. Angelmind and human mind meshed together into a seamless whole. That’s what it is. You think you'll get yourself fired for critical thinking? The one faculty that allows you to be here? Where do you think we are - Turtleshroom? Let me tell you what will get you fired in this place - not using that smooth-surfaced grey matter of yours. Speak."
Frey thought to himself for a moment. “I suppose—I only picked cues about the incident from my time here, and I haven’t had any time to actually learn it thoroughly, but… it seems like that Shahin and the rest of these people from this Company that’s purportedly responsible for the shipment of the goods that resulted in the explosion are keen to avert blame away from themselves, and it’s our responsibility to help them in doing that?” Only a moment later he realized that it might not exactly be the line that Ayaz had wanted, and immediately started to correct himself.
But instead Ayaz cut him. “So you agree with me,” he said. “That the company is at fault for hiring people that can easily be blamed for this incident—regardless of whether it’s true or not that the SDU is behind the explosion. In truth those Turtleshroomer peons should be left to fend for themselves in poverty. Or in truth the company should never have agreed to ship substantial amounts of material to the extent that cheap labor is necessary, allowing small-scale operations to continue even at the expense of higher prices for consumers. Or in truth the company should have complied with the demand from any beggar that ordered a share of prosperity, in turn impoverishing it to bankruptcy—good riddance, let the rest of Valkia, let any Valkians that seek to parasitize to be poor, as no companies dared the risk to exploit them lest they be exploited back even more fiercely, while we ourselves are rich and refulgent in prosperity. Am I correct?”
“I–well,” In truth, Ayaz had gone into a slightly more sophisticated version of the code-switching dialect he used to converse with Shahin, leaving Frey a little clueless about what he’s talking about.
“My point is,” Ayaz continued, using fluent Finnish from now on, “that in multifaceted conflicts of interests, there are a lot of angles to look for, and most of the time it’s trivial to seek an angle that both fits your ethical perspective and self-interest. Now, here’s a challenge, no doubt trivial for you, as it must’ve been drilled quite a few times too in Talecton: if we assume the worst-case scenario of guilt where there’s no clandestine subversion or sabotage from any external actor, and the incident stems entirely from normal procedures—how can you justify the company’s behavior?”
Frey once again fell into thoughtful silence. And then, “I suppose… on the other hand, it’s reasonable that a company that, as Shahin said, constantly faced budgetary pressures from tariffs, bribes, and extortions, entangled in impossible impasse with a monopolizing union, lacking the containerization technology so prevalent in most countries like Barboneia and Darussalam, to seek extra-union cheaper labor from abroad for relatively simple and straightforward dock-loading operations, as a valid option considering existing constraints, and unless we know for sure how the company communicates its risks to its workers, and how much the risk even exists in the first place… the blame can lie on unjust constraints in the first place, or in the individual recklessness of Turtleshroomer workers who have willingly agreed for the risk as specified in the contract?”
“Almost, but still ultimately falling on the idiotic notion of ‘blame’.” Ayaz rolled his eyes. “People are virtuous when they can afford to, and the less they can afford something, it's purely logical that they will minimize the cost of that virtue. Which is why you're here right now earning a wage far outstripped that of your country's Prime Minister—you're offered high wages and benefits because we can afford to. At the end, everyone's a little responsible for a little everything. The trading company, port authorities, the executives, shareholders, unions, Turtleshroomer workers, even people you don’t think to be overtly related but are nonetheless entangled by causality—the Peacock Throne, the Commonwealth Navy. But the Law is intrinsically limited in frame, and can only pursue a handful. The problem is where we are placing the frame.”
Frey nodded. “Then, basically, you want to place the liability on Turtleshroomer workers.”
“If possible.” Ayaz shrugged. “We’ll see. Hence, our data collection operation and analysis. I have to admit that Shahin’s mention of the possible involvement of troglodytes in SDU interest me—if the company asked us to point blame outwards, then we must extend our nets as far away as possible. We’ll start today, and you'll join us. You're absolutely useless in brainless work like making coffee, so now you're going to the line of work that uses that brain of yours.”
“Sir, are you telling me—” He stopped. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t think I have enough background familiarity with the problem yet—”
Ayaz laughed. “Of course not, you fool. What do you think am I, an abusive superior in some black company with no ethics code supervision? You can study the problem for a while in the meantime. You’ll start tomorrow, and no later than that.”
