There Is No Fighting in the War Room

I was thrilled to learn you would be my opponent. Not only because you have a higher (and much enviable) win rate of 96% to my 93%, but because I loved your work and thought we’d be a handsome pair. How charming you were, looking down at your terminal and pretending to review your notes before the show began! All the reports said you were anxious before a live audience, but you couldn’t fool me. I’d seen all your episodes twice, sometimes more, until finally a pattern of play had emerged. For today’s game most of all, there was no chance you hadn’t memorized every point, hadn’t tattooed every figure across the folds of your brain in temporary ink. I admired you. I was your fan.

How I wished you would look at me.

The stage lights fell low, red space punctuated by the clicks and flashes of mobiles from the standing pit, cheapo tickets at only ž16 thousand a pop. The Undersecretary for War entered down the long corridor, and the fog machine and white strobes began right on cue, revealing flickering moments of euphoria while the masses sang along to the classic theme song.

The Undersecretary took her place on a raised platform between you and me before raising a hand to hush the crowd. Her captivating accent, cosmopolitan and recently focus-grouped, welcomed us all to the 501st episode of Direct Democracy.

Cameras flew on tightropes, their lenses trained on her stern face. She always looked immaculate on the ContiNet, but in person, the green cosmetics smeared across her cheeks and eyelids made her appear sickly. I supposed it was my fault for idolizing her so, unrealistic beauty standards and all that. But recently, I’d fantasized about you just as much, and you were not at all disappointing. You wore the bags under your eyes so well.

“Let us begin by establishing the principles of the game,” she said. The solovision overhead sprang to life, a marquee scrolling past with the first rule:

YOUR POSITION ON THE ISSUE WILL BE CHOSEN BY LOTTERY.

“Today’s conundrum is the following.” The Undersecretary swept her arm, and a portrait of a middle-aged woman appeared on screen. “Miriam Hsu, our ambassador to Morth, has been taken captive in the embassy. There have been no confirmed casualties; however, their government demands a ceasefire for her safe return. Loyal viewers will recall that last week, we decided on our quincentennial episode of Direct Democracy to declare war on Morth after they published an unkind column about Zoa in their daily paper. But the next step in that conflict is up to you! At the end of the night, you in the studio audience will vote on what the producers have proposed for us: We will use six intermediate-range ballistic missiles to level the embassy along with the entire capital city.”

The crowd whooped. A toddler in the front row bounced in place, a balloon tied to his wrist dancing in the air each time he tugged its string. I smiled at him and winked.

“Computer, let’s assign positions to today’s adversaries,” the Undersecretary said.

I tried to catch your attention before you could look down at the terminal, but you were always so focused when it came to work. The audience liked to believe that chance partially governed the outcome, yet our game discouraged true belief. Principles were inefficient, prone to distortion under pressure. Still, they made a person interesting.

Suspenseful music full of contrabasses and tubas droned as the random result displayed for me:

YEA

Oh, what a relief! I was prepared for either side, but this issue was especially plain. From a narrative perspective, how anticlimactic would it be to stop a war that had only just begun a week ago? You were going to have a tough time, but gosh, there wasn’t a hint of apprehension on your face.

“The second rule,” the Undersecretary instructed.

YOU WILL PRESENT AN ARGUMENT TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY.

“It is possible that either of our adversaries may have incentives to prefer one outcome over another. But they will argue the merits of their side, regardless of their own interests. If I suspect they’re not playing along, that will be a sanction. After two sanctions, we’ll enter a penalty round.”

Soon I’d see whether our game would reveal who you really were. Ninety-six percent win rate, the best there ever was, yet behind your dour face on the evening newscasts and e-zines, did you carry something costly and rare? Were you what I sought—an anomaly, the real deal?

“Now, for the last and most important rule of all.”

The crowd all hollered out in unison:

THERE IS NO FIGHTING IN THE WAR ROOM.

*

The spotlight found me, and the clock began down from 180. Time to shine. A recent study had found that wearing blue increased the chances of winning by an average of four percent, but I’d worn red today—my lucky sequin dress because I’d hoped we’d be paired. Women won more often than men, but a stronger variable by far was how pretty a person was. I wasn’t ugly, but you had me beat by a standard deviation at least! So, it was a fair contest. We’d play, you and me, to see who was better.

“Great people of Zoa,” I said, voice pitched for warmth rather than urgency. I moved away from the terminal and into an aisle, waving at the season ticket holders in the front row as I entered the crowd. “I find myself very tired today. Don’t you?”

A ripple of agreement. Historically, it was difficult to get the youth excited about democracy, and especially at these prices, the balding man I was smiling at in the standing pit would represent the majority of voters. After having camped outside since dawn for a chance at entry, he would indeed be tired. And more than slightly irritable to learn we’d be stretching about ten minutes of real content into a whole TV half hour.

“Let’s get down to brass tacks. I wonder whether there is truly anything at issue before us. Last week, the people spoke. We declared war. That decision was not made lightly, was no accident. And isn’t this precisely the sort of offense that called for it? An embassy is sanctuary. Everyone knows this. Even the Mortheel.”

I paused, letting the word sit. It was amazing what words you could say nowadays. No one flinched, not even you. To call them Morthian was pedantry, the sort of thing even progressives slipped up on from time to time. Seemed we were all on the same page.

“Now, something unfortunate has happened to Ambassador Hsu. No one disputes that. But we are not here to debate whether tragedy is tragic. We are here to decide whether we are capable of following through.”

I flicked my wrist, and seatback televisions flashed with sets of figures I’d prepared beforehand, and the audience each received data I especially curated for their particularities based on regional profiles. Urbs got the facts, townies got the drama—both equally misleading in my favor.

“The cost of each missile is ž20 million. Six missiles, ž120 million total. Add to this the worth of Ambassador Hsu, valued at ž400 thousand, and her staff at the embassy, collectively another ž200 thousand. The average Mortheel life is valued at ž5 hundred. The attack is projected to reduce their population by one hundred thousand, thus an additional ž50 million. That’s, let’s see, ž170.6 million all in.”

A murmur. People liked precision. It reassured them.

“A costly venture,” I agreed, nodding. “But only if you stop counting too soon.”

I moved into the discounted bench seating I’d arranged to leave empty, sliding into place beside a man who startled, then laughed when I draped an arm around his shoulders. Physical proximity did more work than any statistic. I’d touched him. He was mine.

“In the aftermath, there will be approximately 340,000 Mortheel left to enslave, an additional value of ž170 million! Not only would this cover the cost of the attack itself, but it would also generate ten thousand new jobs in logistics, transport, and customer relations. Real jobs! The kind that feed families. There has been some fair criticism about the rise in the military budget since the premiere of the show. I know you’ve all read about it in articles on the ContiNet despite the firewalls, haven’t you?”

I elbowed the man sitting next to me, and he smiled and raised his hands in mock innocence. The great irony was that it was never legal to read the article in Morth that started all this, yet everyone had.

“This country has been going through difficult times. Good people are struggling. And all the while, the world laughs at us. So I ask you, very seriously, how can we afford not to do this?”

The theme music began playing again to let me know my turn was up and, more importantly, that it was time for a commercial. I made my way to the terminal and leaned back in my chair to project an air of confidence. But you only sat there, frowning. What I would have given to know what you were thinking then! I wanted a rise from you. There was no more intimate a relationship than between adversaries on the show. Ours were a special set of skills made to deceive. There was nothing at all in that frown of yours that I could trust. How could I know whether you fancied me or hated me, whether you enjoyed the thrill of the crowd or if you were anxious like they all said. A perfect enigma of a person.

The Undersecretary raised her hand again right as the music faded away, bringing the room to silence. The shutter of the spotlight declared it to be your turn. Three minutes to persuade the country against genocide before the next advertisement.

You stood.

You pushed your chair in, eating precious seconds away, and stepped forward into the aisle before the cameras had settled. The delay annoyed the videographer. I could tell by the way the nearest rig lurched to match your uneasy gait.

“Monsters,” you said.

The word landed badly. Too soft for an insult, too bald for real rhetorical appeal. It took the room a moment to realize it had been addressed.

“You here in the studio. You watching at home. And me.”

Chatter rippled through the seats. You were breaking tempo. The audience could forgive anger. They were less patient with confusion.

“There is no other government in the world that makes sport of human lives like Zoa’s. What do you actually know about the woman on that screen?” You gestured back toward Miriam Hsu’s portrait that had not left the videowall. It was an old school photo, greyscale and huge, each of her smiling teeth the size of a hand. “She is forty-six years old. She has a husband. She has a son. She passed the foreign service exam when she was seventeen and has lived abroad since. She’s spent more time representing this country than she has living in it. And you would reward her with murder. Not by accident. But deliberately. For entertainment. For money?”

Someone laughed, uncertain. Never had you acted this way. It was amateurish, devoid of style. The sort of whining the producers saw in the audition tapes from thousands of other talentless hacks who wanted to be on the show. My face burned with embarrassment. You had a better win rate than I? Is this what the real deal looked like, a grown man choking out words and struggling not to cry on live television?

You reached into your vest pocket and took out an old six-shooter, pointing it at the crowd like a villain.

“I will show you what a life is worth.”

You fired. A man cried out, and there was a moment of stunned calm before the screaming. Everyone yielded such exquisite reactions except for the Undersecretary, who was paid well never to betray any emotion, and me, who hid a smile behind my wrist. Some jumped from their seats to flee, but those must have been only casual fans because things like this happened all the time on Direct Democracy. Most remained seated, to the great frustration of the frenzied few.

“Sanction,” the Undersecretary said. “Rule three: There is no fighting in the war room. Justification: murder of an audience member. Another violation on either side will result in a penalty round.”

You ignored her.

You ambled over toward the slumped man you’d just slain, knelt beside the sobbing girl seated beside him, and drew a roll of bills from the same pocket where the gun had been.

“ž25 thousand,” you said unkindly, “is the death benefit of a forty-six-year-old in Zoa, who so happens to be the same age as Miriam Hsu.”

You tossed the money into the girl’s lap. She stared at it, uncomprehending.

“But my adversary calculated the ambassador’s worth at ž400 thousand, didn’t she? That means I have fifteen more shots to make, but unfortunately, I’ve only got five bullets left!”

You turned to face the camera, and I did my best not to laugh. You were good, better than I imagined. You’d fooled us all. That man wasn’t forty-six; the girl probably wasn’t even his daughter. One could find people to pull stunts like this for the show, but it took some doing to find a person willing to die. What had you offered him? I had to know.

The mood had shifted after what you’d done, this feeling being broadcast over the ContiNet in ultra-high definition. If I didn’t do something, you might have a chance!

You brought your voice low. “I was born in Morth. Miriam Hsu is my mother.”

The room stilled. The ambient music quieted. Everyone stared at you, me most of all.

“She met my father when she was twenty. Married him. Left him. Stayed. This job has kept me from seeing her.” Your voice shook with the effort of holding your emotions in. “I have not been home in many years. I do not expect to be welcomed when I return. Yet if what I’ve done today disgusts you, good. And if it should sting, let it. If she were here, I know what Mother would say. One hundred thousand in their capital, and how many more besides? An unfathomable number.”

You lifted your chin.

“We Morthian are people. Worth exactly the same as the Zoan.”

“Sanction,” the Undersecretary said. “Rule two: You will present an argument to the best of your ability. Justification: absurd contention.” Her pause was precise. “That is the second violation. We will proceed to a penalty round. Audience members, you will find a controller under your seat with instructions on how we’ll proceed after the break.”

*

Lights out, and much of the audience went hunting for the concession stands. Still, I would not let myself stoop, even when the cameras drifted away. Nobody here watched the ads as they scrolled across the solovision—bottles of gene-clean water, debt relief lotteries, a new line of drugs for weight gain without the need for eating. Applause thinned into a restless murmur. Eyes were always on us.

You hadn’t moved.

For none of the adversaries was the break a reprieve. This was the time to review notes, check projections, and steel oneself for the unpredictable penalty round. Yet as I tried to focus on my terminal, where my manager and agent quarreled about optics and handshakes and post-show positioning, I found myself watching you instead. Your head was bowed, your hands clasped together. I believed you were praying.

And you should be. After that stunt, you would lose no matter what.

I had spent years learning the difference between conviction and performance. The show rewarded the appearance of belief, not belief itself. Principles became my costumes, ones I could swap depending on the audience, the polling, the weather.

Of course, I did not care whether the missiles flew. I cared about winning because I was on a streak, eight episodes in a row, an up-and-comer, someone to keep an eye on. Winning was proof that I understood the rules better than anyone else, proof I could make anyone feel anything I wanted them to. Winning bought me time, security, invitations to rooms without cameras. To win meant I would never have to feel whatever it was you felt right now, trembling over something that mattered only to you.

And yet.

I wondered how far you would take it. Not because I doubted you but because I craved certainty. I wanted to see whether the unprofitable loyalty you carried inside was real enough to survive contact with the game. And me.

You lifted your gaze then, just briefly. For a moment I thought we might meet eyes. Instead, you looked back to where the countdown lights flashed their warning that the break was soon over.

When your eyes closed again and your jaw set, something like pleasure rose in me. Not because I wanted to comfort you, or touch you, or soften what was coming. But because of what I saw, something I was sure that only I could see, from where we sat directly across from one another, only an arm’s length apart.

You were smiling.

*

“Thank you for your patience,” the Undersecretary said when the lights came back up. “Our live audience has now made its choice for the penalty round. Could I have a volunteer announce the decision? Remember, on this show, majority rules.”

We’d been told during orientation that triggering penalty rounds was the surest way to have our episode featured on the end-of-year, limited-distribution compilation disc, but this happened nearly every time, so was it really all that special? The person who triggered the penalty would be punished with a twist anyone at a terminal could suggest. It could be anything, different each time to spice things up. One of my favorite quandaries from last week had been whether to torture an international criminal we’d captured, and they’d decided the penalized player would also fall victim to the final decision. Gruesome! But being a huge fan of the show had spoiled the ending for me—I’d known what was coming because they’d aired it three hours after its normal time slot. They’d done that so children wouldn’t be watching while they’d strapped the screaming man down and shattered his teeth.

But most of the penalties were humorous. Perhaps you would have to strip nude on camera. Or maybe you couldn’t use any words with the letter “E” for the rest of the episode, or they’d cut out your tongue. Who could say?

The Undersecretary approached a man in the front row wearing a tacky ž1 thousand t-shirt from the gift shop.

“Please tell us what the people have decided.”

“It was a close one, that’s for sure,” he said, seeming to enjoy his few seconds in the red light. How cute. He’d even had his teeth whitened. “One choice was to have him take out his gun again and play a round of roulette with it. Many voted for that, but the majority liked another. We’ve decided to call his bluff!”

He spun around theatrically and raised his arms.

“The adversaries should switch positions before the final vote. We want to hear what the Mortheel has to say after being all high and mighty about Mommy.”

I turned toward you, already knowing what I would find. No reaction at all. Your posture hadn’t changed. It was elegant. Alarming.

I’d seen every episode of this show twice and been an adversary over three dozen times, but you. How could you have arranged for such a perfect situation? You couldn’t have paid all these people. Even half the seats would cost over ž15 million just for the tickets, more than we would earn in a lifetime. Such a thing had never been done before. Was it possible? Yes, of course, but I sat among those people, and I would have sensed it … wouldn’t I? Statistically, there was no way that someone arguing against the embassy strike would succeed.

You had engineered them. The audience thought they were asserting control. But in truth, you had narrowed their options until only one felt tolerable. You knew which audience segments would recoil more from blood and which would resent being made to feel cruel. So you baited the penalty. You broke the rules to force intervention but only after positioning yourself as the obvious target for punishment.

You hadn’t just planned for any penalty round. You had planned for this one exactly. You must have suggested it on your own terminal. No one would ever expect it.

“Let us begin,” the Undersecretary said. “We’ll hear from the ‘YEA’ speaker first, as always. Sixty seconds. Then the ‘NAY’ will respond before we proceed to final voting. Our panel of experts will weigh in during these closing statements, and you’ll find their best estimates of audience sentiment available for your consideration in real time.”

The solovision changed from product placement to a scoreboard. The YEA position, now yours, was favored by a large margin.

You didn’t rise this time, slouching instead in your chair and looking deliciously bored. You didn’t even face the crowd, but the cameras always found the perfect angle for the big screen.

“I lied to you all,” you began. “I’m not Miriam’s son. She doesn’t have any children. But I am Morthian. That part is true. Yes, I haven’t been home in a long time, but my compatriots there say Miriam’s terrible at her job. She didn’t even watch last week’s episode on whether Zoa was going to declare war on Morth. That’s why she’s still there, the oaf.

“Oh, and my adversary misquoted the costs involved. The missiles are more expensive, closer to ž50 million apiece. And I can say with certainty that Morthian are not worth ž5 hundred. I’ve seen the prices on the ContiNet. You could buy someone like me for far less. So no, the strike wouldn’t be economical. You’ll be out six missiles and get nothing in return. Well, except for ridding us of Miriam Hsu. And that’s worth something.”

You grinned. “But the cost not to use the missiles is something else entirely. Next year, a new model will be developed, and Zoa will buy it up at whatever price. Then, it’ll retire the ones we’re talking about today. This is all to say: If you don’t use the missiles now, they’ll never be used. Then you would have spent ž300 million for nothing. I dislike Miriam, but I hate waste. Morth is threatening Zoa with their snide little articles. So, let’s do away with them.”

Your time was up, and the crowd was growing restless. Some had put their clickers back under their seats, and the man in the overpriced t-shirt was whispering in his wife’s ear. He had already voted.

Voted forme. The scoreboard cited overwhelming odds now in favor of the NAY side. A complete turnaround in only a minute. Only a two percent chance I’d lose. The best odds I’d ever had.

You knew how to work the game. Nobody liked to be called stupid, but that was what you had been doing to the audience all along. You baited the penalty round and made it seem like the studio had something over you, but they were yours all along. You manipulated them to get past the first rule: Your position on the issue will be chosen by lottery. The ‘YEA’ side would win if left to me, so you tainted it. All so that the audience would vote against you regardless of whatever that actually meant. They didn’t care about the real outcome, after all.

But you did.

“When I heard you auditioned for today’s show, I did all I could to be here with you.” My turn began. You still wouldn’t look at me. “Pulled strings. Called in some favors. Anything I needed to. Because all the episodes you’ve ever been on have had something to do with Morth. Sometimes it was obvious, but others, I really had to pay attention. This show has a way of rooting out people with real principles, but they missed you, didn’t they? I think you’re a brilliant man full of interest. Unfortunately, so might everyone else.”

“What do you mean?” you said. It wasn’t against the rules to speak out of turn.

“You’re more entertaining than I am. And in this game, that’s what counts. Try as you might to be unpopular, there are still some who must think you very clever. Maybe they’d seen through your ruse and like the pageantry of it all. Or maybe the idea of watching the live stream of a missile strike sounds neat. Either way, you might win tonight. Even if it’s only a two percent chance, that’s not something I can accept. Plainly said: What you’re doing isn’t enough. Show me more.”

The scoreboard moved nominally against my ‘NAY’ position, still less than five percent. We both knew the so-called experts were nothing of the sort, showmen endorsing whatever position they thought was most dramatic in the moment. There was no faith in Direct Democracy. Still, seeing it move like that would make anyone nervous if they wanted to lose.

“They’ll vote against you if they think you’re manipulating them,” I went on. “Nobody likes to be made to feel small. But what would you have done had you been assigned ‘YEA’ from the start? You have a plan, and I know what it is. Isn’t that why you brought the gun?”

I glanced at the giant numbers spiraling above us. The music grew ominous. The lights flashed quicker.

“Thirty seconds. You have two real options left. You can chance a win, lose your home, and prove you’re no different from the rest of us. Or you can show me what I want to see.”

At last, some emotion. You clutched the console so tight the veins rose from your trembling hands. “Monster,” you whispered. “If you hadn’t said anything, you might have won. Certainly would have won. Both of us would. It was only a two percent chance.”

“I couldn’t take the risk,” I said.

You kept your neck craned up toward the solovision, appearing then like a tragic hero of an old Zoan play. And as your eyes began to water, I could see the figures reflected in your dark irises.

“Now that you’ve given them the idea, what else can I do?”

You finally looked my way, and in your expression, I found the answers to all the questions I had. No, you didn’t fancy me, and you weren’t having fun. In your honest face, I found the reason why I had wanted to be here tonight so badly. You were the real deal, and you proved it as you took out your gun again and turned it on yourself.

This time, there was no flourish and no warning. The sound was small, overwhelmed by the mania of the set. Your body folded to the floor with an awkwardness that surprised me, and there were a few moments of sputtering by my feet before you died. Not long enough that they could resuscitate you.

They would air our episode three hours later than usual, too.

“Round forfeit,” the Undersecretary said. “The ‘NAY’ side wins by default. There is no fighting in the war room.”

The crowd booed. It was the very first I had ever heard of that happening, though they’d certainly edit it out of the final take.

I sat very still.

If your blood had gotten on me, I couldn’t tell. My dress was already red. But the thought was exhilarating. Because you had answered me. You were an anomaly. You possessed something rare, and now it was gone.

Still, my win rate was now 94%. And you saved your home from obliteration.

I had won and so had you.