Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (22 page)

There were
some
refuseniks
, most feeling quietly dignified in
their embrace with legal principles, but occasionally someone would pop up who
wanted to make a big noise about it.  Someone who would harangue the registrars
over the phone, or who might take to the streams to tell anyone who would
listen what a foul travesty of natural justice was being perpetrated upon the
people.  The people didn’t seem to mind too much.

Senior
management at
Hjälp
Teknik
retained an air of aloof indifference as though they were above such coarse
things.  They went about their business like elderly women ignoring the
skateboarders and glue sniffers they had to negotiate on their way to the
shops.  To deny the voter registration process any legitimacy they simply
ignored it.  As a policy it was hopeless, since most of the population
didn’t ignore it but positively embraced it.  Those who denied the
legitimacy of the plebiscite were simply left behind as its momentum and the
public’s interest in it surged past them.  Within a few short weeks what
had once seemed like a contentious issue simply became a fact, like the
weather.  A plebiscite was going to happen; the people were going to vote.

The date for
the plebiscite was set for 6 June by the Gregorian Earth calendar, which many
felt ill-suited to Martian requirements.  Some of the more
enthusiastic ‘yes’ campaigners were hoping that independence would mean a
switch to a Martian calendar, which would make much more sense for Martians.

Kostovich had
the necessary systems for the plebiscite in place within a few days. 
Hardware was not an issue, and from a software perspective it was a trivial
task.  Voter registration was mostly complete after two weeks, which left
a further four weeks for campaigning.

Campaigning
was mostly carried out via the streams.  Aggregators could easily gather
the most popular ‘yes’ or ‘no’ streams together for the interested
viewer.  ‘Yes’ streams massively outnumbered ‘no’ streams, and the popularity
of ‘yes’ fed on itself.  Not being a part of the ‘yes’ streams, consuming
others’ or adding your own, seemed somehow like being on the outside of the big
party.  ‘No’ streams often seemed dour, pompous, self-serving and
backward-looking.  ‘Yes’ streams appeared to be fun, dynamic, modern
and forward-looking.

Charles
Venkdt contributed a lot of his own ‘yes’ streams.  His were mostly
serious and detailed.  He had thought the whole thing through in great
detail and had masses of documentation to back himself up.  He laid out
his position clearly with very skilfully made arguments.  He made a
compelling case but was not the most popular ‘yes’ stream.  That honour
went to Independence Monkey - a monkey wearing a ‘Vote Yes!’ T-shirt
who variously fell off a table, skateboarded, and flung his poo at the camera.

By the time
plebiscite day came around it was looking like a done deal.  Christina,
Venkdt and Kostovich could all see potential for disaster.  If everyone
thought the die was cast there would be no incentive to vote.  Though it
seemed like there was an overwhelming ‘yes’ majority they would all have to
turn out to vote in order that the necessary eighty percent turnout was
reached.  On the eve of the plebiscite ninety-four percent of the
Martian population had registered to vote.  The fourteen percent margin
would be crucial to the whole thing.  If fourteen percent or more of the
Martian population didn’t turn out then the ‘noes’ would have it.  Despite
riding the crest of a huge wave of popularity for the ‘yes’ campaign, for
Charles Venkdt 6 June was going to be a very long day.

On the day of
the plebiscite Venkdt rose at his usual time of 07:00.  Voting started at
08:00.  He went about his daily routine, arriving at Venkdt Mars Corp HQ
shortly before 09:00.  The security guard greeted him warmly as usual and
he said cheery hellos to colleagues here and there on his way to the
office.  There was an extra spring in his step that day.

His PA
greeted him warmly.  “Good morning, Mr Venkdt,” she said.  “Lovely
day for a plebiscite.”

Venkdt smiled
and nodded.  “It is too,” he said.  Indeed, the skies were clear and
the wind was low, though the living and working environments of the Martian
population remained sealed off against the cold, low-pressure of the
external atmosphere.  “I’m expecting a good turnout,” said Venkdt,
employing the ancient electoral vocabulary.  “I’ll be in my office most of
the day.  I’m expecting Christina and Dr Kostovich to come by later, could
you organise some lunch and drinks?  Just sandwiches or something.”

“Of course,
Mr Venkdt.”

Venkdt
entered his office and sat at his terminal.  He scanned through his
messages and seeing nothing of note went to his aggregator, searching for any
streams concerning the election.  He quickly found one called
News
Muncher
.  It was quite a slick operation.  The name seemed to
ring a bell somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t be quite sure if
he had heard of them before.  He didn’t know if they were an ongoing
organisation or if a couple of enterprising individuals had slung the thing
together just to cover the election.  Feeds ran across the bottom of the
screen advertising books about politics, revolution and business - this
was obviously where
News Muncher
’s revenue was coming from - but
there were also many other advertisements and links for competing
streams.  Venkdt was happy enough with this one.

There were
two anchors, discussing and commenting on events with at least some low-level
insight.  They constantly cut to other streams of people out and about,
often little groups of people discussing how they had voted or what they
expected the outcome to be, or how it might affect them.  For every person
who stated how they had voted a tracker in the top left corner of the screen
kept tally.  The anchors repeatedly mentioned how their tally ‘was not
scientific’ but that the more people they canvassed the more accurate it was
likely to be.  By this early stage in the day they had caught on the
streams one hundred and eighty-seven clearly voiced declarations, with
one hundred and sixty-one claiming to have voted ‘yes’.  Next to the
raw number was the ‘yes’ percentage: eighty-six percent, well over the
sixty-seven percent needed for the two-thirds majority.  This
was what Venkdt had expected but it was no cause for celebration.  The
crucial number, he knew, was going to be turnout.  If too few people voted
they would not reach the eighty percent that he had stipulated in his
proposal.  He knew too that he really needed the turnout to be as high as
possible.  He needed the raw numbers to give any victory a natural
legitimacy that it would not strictly have in law.  He had known that all
along, and knew it might be difficult, but it was absolutely necessary. 
For the plebiscite to represent the voice of the people it had to represent the
voice of all of the people, or a good approximation thereof.  It was, he
knew, a numbers game.

He watched
the show for the best part of an hour.  By then it had become repetitive
and its main point had been made many times over.  The ‘yes’ vote was
extremely strong, people were generally engaged in the debate and process, and
there was something of a party atmosphere to the whole occasion.  Venkdt
had made the day a holiday; most of his employees had the day off.  He had
also laid on some special events such as election parties and cook-offs,
complete with large screens showing election coverage.

Once his
interest in the show had waned Venkdt thought it must be time for him to do the
deed himself.  He flipped the stream from his terminal up on to one of the
walls and lowered the sound until it was only just audible.  He brought
out his comdev and ran the voting app.  It immediately asked him for his
voter registration number.  He brought that up on his terminal and sent it
to the comdev, which dutifully told him it was a legitimate number belonging to
Charles Venkdt.  It gave his address and various other details and
confirmed that the comdev it was running on was registered to the same Charles
Venkdt as the registration number.  It then requested an iris scan and a
left thumb print.  Venkdt held the comdev to his eye and then placed his
thumb on the screen in the designated position.  The comdev related the
information back to the voter registration database and once again informed him
he was eligible to vote, and would he like to proceed?  He was about to
answer ‘yes’ when he paused.  He lay the comdev down on his desk and
turned to the terminal.  He fired up the built-in camera and fed it
through to his stream.  He spoke slightly awkwardly to the camera. 
“Hi, this is Charles Venkdt here and I’m about to vote in the plebiscite, and I
hope you are too!”

He turned his
attention back to the comdev.  He pressed ‘yes’ that he would like to
proceed.  The screen changed.  The independence statement was written
across the top third of the screen in very clear lettering.  Below it, in
smaller letters, was a clock counting down from 00:59 surrounded by the works
‘You have’ and ‘seconds remaining to cast your vote’.  Below that the rest
of the screen was taken up with two very large buttons; a green one, emblazoned
with the word ‘yes’ and a red one with the word ‘no’.  Venkdt wanted to
savour the moment but he was very aware of the counter, which had already
reached 00:48 by the time he had carefully read the statement, which he knew to
the letter anyway.  He held the comdev up toward the camera and smiled for
posterity then very deliberately pressed the green ‘yes’ button.  The
comdev spoke.  “Thank you.  Your vote has been recorded.  You
will be informed of the result when polling closes at 22:00 this evening.”

Venkdt looked
into the camera on his terminal.  “That’s all there is to it, folks. 
Make sure your vote counts!  Enjoy the day!”  He felt sheepish at his
clumsy remarks and quickly cut his stream.  He sat back in his chair and
looked at the stream playing on the wall.  Within minutes he was
restreamed on the show.  The stream had been jazzed up a little - it
froze on
Venkdt’s
face while one of the commentators
explained who he was and later it crashed-zoomed into
Venkdt’s
finger pressing ‘yes’.  The anchors tried to joke that
Venkdt’s
vote was shocking and unexpected.  It wasn’t particularly funny.

Venkdt ate
lunch alone.

Christina
arrived
midafternoon
.  She had brought some work
with her and she set herself up on the small conference table to the left of
Venkdt’s
desk.  They exchanged a few words, Christina
turning down the offer of food.  She had eaten before she left.  “How
does it seem to be going?” she said, nodding toward the screen.

“Good,” said
Venkdt.  “The ‘yes’ vote is incredibly strong, we don’t have any worries
there.  It all comes down to turnout.”

“We’ve always
known that, haven’t we?” Christina said, adding absentmindedly, “Why is it
called ‘turnout’?”

Venkdt looked
up from his screen.  “In days of old - even now, I think,
some places in the non-aligned countries where they’re dirt poor - people
would have to physically come to designated polling stations to cast a physical
ballot.  So people would have to - literally - ‘turn
out’ to make their vote.”

“Oh,” said
Christina.  “You’ll get the turnout, won’t you?  I mean, now that
it’s a simple matter of tapping into your comdev?”

“I hope so,”
said Venkdt, “but I wouldn’t take anything for granted.  I guess we’ve
done all we can now.  Now it’s up to them.”  He gestured everywhere
and nowhere.

By early
evening
News Muncher
was showing their calculation for the percentage of
voters voting ‘yes’ as eight-seven percent.  It had varied
throughout the day, but not by much.  Venkdt and Christina shared a light
evening meal around 19:00.  Shortly after that Kostovich arrived.  He
had spent the day reworking USAN weapon designs.  He now felt he had a
good portfolio of well-designed and relatively easy to produce weapons
and ancillary equipment with which to furnish a nascent army.

“I’m sorry I
couldn’t make it earlier,” he said chirpily as he arrived.  “I’ve been
working on some very interesting stuff that I hope will come in useful later,
if this thing goes the way we hope it does.  Hello Christina.”

Christina
looked up from the papers scattered in front of her and made a thin
smile.  “Hi, Dan,” she said, and went back to her work.

“You did a
great job of organising all this.  Tip-top, really,” said Kostovich.

“It was
pretty straight forward.  Thanks for the voting system.”

“Oh, it’s
standard stuff.  It has to be.  It’s all open source code so everyone
can see we’re not fixing anything.  I made some very minor changes. 
Trivial, really.”

“Thanks
anyway.”  Christina was engrossed in her work, or at least hiding in it.

Kostovich
pulled a chair up to
Venkdt’s
desk.  “How’re we
doing?” he said.

“The vote is
great, but it’s the numbers we need.  And we won’t know them until it’s
over.”

“Yes,” said
Kostovich, “about that.”

“Yes?” said
Venkdt cautiously.

“Well,” said
Kostovich, “you know all the information pertaining to the vote - votes
cast, ‘yeses’, ‘noes’ etcetera - is strictly confidential until
the vote is in?”