Free The Corporation Wars: Dissidence by Ken MacLeod Page B

shouts:
    “Viva, Carlos! Viva, Carlos! Viva, viva, viva, Carlos!”
    What the fuck? What the fucking fuck was all that about?
    Nicole had dragged his kitbag to beside the deck rail, and now pulled out a chair for him. Not entirely sure what to do, he repeated the courtesy for her and sat down beside her after she was seated. Everyone seemed happy with this. Carlos looked from one beaming, awestruck face to another as Nicole introduced them, and one by one shook hands across the shoved-together tables.
    Belfort Beauregard, a tall and muscular guy with close-cropped fair hair, a cut-glass English accent and a kindly smile, who held himself very straight in the chair and struck Carlos as the only one here with anything like a military bearing, ever alert.
    Taransay Rizzi, a short, dark, stocky Scottish woman with fine features and a flash of irony in her eyes.
    Chun Ho, even taller than Beauregard, with an Australian accent, a swimmer’s shoulders and a wary nod.
    Waggoner Ames, a big, bearded computer scientist from Idaho, who was the only one whose name Carlos recognised, a legend and rumour in the Acceleration.
    Maryam Karzan, a Kurdish woman who seemed about thirty and claimed she’d been shot in Istanbul at the age of ninety-five and who looked, for the moment at least, permanently delighted with her situation.
    Someone stuck a beer in front of Carlos.
    “Cheers,” he said, raising it. Bottles and glasses clinked. Everyone looked at him as if expecting him to say something. He took a quick cold gulp, and swallowed again.
    “Look, guys, comrades, whatever… uh, this is very gratifying and thanks for the welcome and all that but I keep thinking you must be mistaking me for somebody who deserves all this. And I’m guessing it’s because you’re all Axle”—vigorous nods all round, they looked like they were about to start saluting and cheering all over again—”and I kind of gathered from Nicole here that we’re all pretty much persona non grata with the current, uh, regime, I mean government or whatever it is—”
    “The Direction,” Nicole interjected.
    “Figures,” said Carlos. That raised some wry smiles. “Anyway, what I’m saying is, can someone please tell me what this is all about?”
    They all looked at each other, then at Nicole.
    “You didn’t tell him?” Beauregard asked.
    Nicole shook her head. “I thought it best he heard it from you first. He might not have believed it from me.”
    “Well—” began Beauregard.
    “I should tell him,” Karzan interrupted, leaning forward. “I was the last of us to be killed.”
    “Good point,” said Beauregard.
    The others returned solemn nods.
    “Two years and three months after you,” Karzan told Carlos. “That was when I died. Even then, after so many great battles, you were still world famous. The hero of Docklands! You were the first great martyr of the Acceleration. You took so many of the enemy with you! In the back streets little pictures of you were stuck to lamp posts and to doors and to the stocks of the fighters’ Kalashnikovs. You were known as Carlos the Terrorist. You inspired us and you were hated by the Reaction.”
    She swigged from her bottle and sat back. “That’s why you must lead us now.”
    Carlos had listened to this with horror almost as great as that with which he’d watched the recordings of his heroic feat.
    He shook his head. “No, no. I haven’t got the experience to lead anyone. Pick someone else.”
    The others exchanged admiring glances.
    Ames laughed abruptly. “We’re Axle, dude. We wouldn’t want a leader who’d
want
to be leader. You’ll do.”
    Carlos couldn’t help thinking of the choosing of the messiah in
The Life of Brian
. He tried not to smile.
    “No, I can’t—”
    Nicole leaned in and spoke sharply. “I think you’ll find you can,” she said.
    She shot a stern covert glance at Carlos, with an almost imperceptible nod. Play along.
    Carlos spread his hands. “All right. If you