Six
Rural Virginia
“USA! USA!”
As soon as the Soviets tipped their proverbial king in defeat, Klaudia’s side erupted into cheers. Emile Vo, a promising second
year, was the one leading the patriotic chant. He and his friends lurched around the room, pumping their fists, hoisting their
blue badges like trophies, while the red and green factions eyed them resentfully.
Red team captain Carter Egan punched the wall so hard that some of the plaster cracked. Par for the course with him: Klaudia
had never met a sorer loser or a more insufferable winner. But she suspected her own side would not be celebrating so fulsomely
if they had been given the ignominious duty of portraying the Soviets.
She also suspected that her opponents, other than Carter, would have been more bereft at their loss had they been playing
against anyone except Klaudia. Losing to her was a given, being assigned to play her a hopeless cause. Ever since she had
been permitted to lead factions, starting at the beginning of her third year, she had never dropped a match. She had never
even come close.
There was a saying in Russian: Those who are afraid of wolves should not go into the woods.
Klaudia removed the nodes from her temples and placed them into the disinfectant case to soak. The nodes—small electrode disks
held in place by strips of adhesive, like a wireless EEG—sent her orders directly to the simulation. They monitored signals
from her brain, so there was no need for her to speak her orders aloud.
Tucking the case into her satchel, Klaudia replayed the game in her mind.
She considered every move she had made, every directive she had given.
The situation generated had been one of a multipolar world with three prevailing axes of power: the US, the Soviets, and a fictional non-state actor in the form of a coalition of North African and Middle Eastern countries.
Nothing like their current bipolar world.
There were two schools of thought regarding multipolarity. The older, more traditional ideology held that it was stabler,
as the great powers were more inclined to seek supremacy through petty wars and strategic alliances than through all-out,
apocalyptic violence. Others insisted that multipolarity was actually especially unstable, with so many factions vying for
power that the world would crumble beneath their weight.
As the Cold War dragged on, as more proxy conflicts emerged, as more nuclear weapons proliferated, as more treaties were forged
and then violated, political scientists began to defect to the ideology of the old guard. Surely anything was better—more
stable—than a bipolar world where two great powers stood in unending, intractable opposition. A zero-sum game that left everyone
else running for cover. As ever, the strong acted, and the weak endured.
Klaudia’s own stance fluctuated. But lately she found herself siding with the old guard, too.
Her play had been satisfactory this match, but not immaculate. She had made a mistake, funding regime change in Indonesia.
Luckily her opponents had not caught on and pressed their advantage, but still. She could not afford such slipups.
Not if she wanted to graduate at number one. Not if she wanted a career that would make her wealthy and high value, that would
keep her far, far away from the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The door to the simulation room opened, and immediately the clamor ceased. Even Carter looked vaguely chastened as Professor
Narendra stepped inside.
“I’m glad to see such spirited competition,” he said. “Excellent play from all sides.”
For advanced simulations, the professors waited outside the room, watching on their tablets. It was a degree of independence
only permitted for games led by third- or fourth-year students. Klaudia was accustomed to the praise; she scarcely felt even
a brief glimmer of pride. But the rest of the blue faction beamed.
“You all may be dismissed for the day,” Professor Narendra went on. “Your grades and your ranking will be updated this evening.
And make sure your papers on cooperation are in by midnight. I will be closing the submission window at eleven fifty-nine.”
Some grousing, mostly good-natured, as the students filed through the door. Carter slouched out, shooting her one last, sulking
glare. Klaudia tightened the strap on her satchel and made her way toward the exit, but before she could step into the hall,
Professor Narendra said, “Klaudia. Wait a moment.”
She paused immediately.
Professor Narendra regarded her. “Another easy victory, I see.”
“But not flawless,” Klaudia said. “I shouldn’t have toppled the socialist government in Jakarta. My junta was unstable. I
didn’t have the resources in the region to maintain it.”
“Maybe so, but sometimes there’s no such thing as perfect play. Only inelegant solutions.”
Professor Narendra was right—but so was Klaudia. There had to be an optimal line, even if she had failed at finding it. Mathematics
dictated so. Not that theory could be guaranteed to prevail in reality. A good strategist needed to look for more than just
the best idea. They had to be willing to try anything that seemed like it might work.
“Clausewitz said that tactics belonged to the realm of science,” Professor Narendra continued, “and that strategy belongs
to the realm of art.”
“But if we operate under the assumption that international relations adheres to the rational choice model, then there’s always perfect play,” Klaudia replied.
“Ah, don’t make me regret our private sessions.”
Professor Narendra had been giving her one-on-one tutoring since her first year. It was uncommon, but not technically prohibited.
Klaudia had been disappointed that Valeran’s curriculum hadn’t offered any courses in mathematics; she didn’t want to risk
falling behind, or missing out on important areas of knowledge. With his degree—one of many—in pure math, Professor Narendra
was happy to put her to work. Game theory. Probability and statistics. It kept her ahead of her classmates in intangible ways,
more than just what was reflected in her official ranking.
“I want to do a turn-by-turn analysis of today’s simulation,” Klaudia said. “Can you send me the recording?”
“Of course,” said Professor Narendra. “Though I don’t want to see you working yourself to the bone. Take a break. Get some
sleep.”
“I get enough sleep.”
Professor Narendra looked unconvinced. But he took out his tablet and messaged her the recording of the day’s match; Klaudia
felt her own tablet vibrate in response a moment later.
“One more thing,” Professor Narendra said. “And not to undermine my own concerns about your workload . . . but I wondered
if I might ask you a favor.”
Klaudia straightened. “What is it?”
“I’m introducing my first years to the simulation tomorrow. I was hoping I could have you there for a demonstration.”
She didn’t need more than a second to consider it. “Yes. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” Professor Narendra smiled at her, and it was the kind of smile that Klaudia appreciated: subtle, even remote. She would have bristled at anything overfamiliar, anything approaching genuine fondness or gentleness. That wasn’t for her. Klaudia’s world was cold by design.
And she would do all that was in her capability to keep it that way. She said goodbye to Professor Narendra without a smile
of her own and departed for the dining hall.
When she arrived, Jane was already waiting for her at their usual table. She perked up when she saw Klaudia and moved her
satchel off the chair beside her so that Klaudia could sit.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “How was your morning?”
Anyone else would have immediately commented on Klaudia’s victory in the simulation—news and gossip spread around Valeran
at breakneck speed—with an undisguised glare of resentment. Nothing drove students at the academy more than competition with
their peers. Dr. Iver had intentionally inculcated a culture of ambition and rivalry, where each student’s loss was another’s
gain. A zero-sum game indeed.
But Jane Lin was different. There was, sincerely and unequivocally, no one else at Valeran like her. She had come to the academy
under almost unthinkable circumstances. Three years ago, a health care corporation, Lumina, had begun implementing AI models
to accept or deny claims by their patients, resulting in an unsurprising but still grim series of negative health outcomes
for patients with preventable and treatable conditions, and even a spate of deaths.
Her parents, Silicon Valley venture capitalists, had heavily invested in Lumina. Nevertheless, it all should have been beneath
Jane’s concern. Even if Lumina had faced more than the faintest rumblings of public backlash, its CEO golfed with the governor.
There would have been no consequences, and nothing to stop Lumina from continuing to cut costs with AI, at the expense of
patient care. The world should have turned on as usual.
Jane, however, had been appalled at what she viewed as a heartless and sadistic policy.
So she had hacked into Lumina’s systems, disabled the AI model, and replaced it with her own code—one that instantly approved every client’s claims. This went unnoticed for weeks, until a corporate board meeting nearly ended in a mutiny when one of the board members presented evidence of fraud.
Misleading shareholders was, of course, a more serious crime than murder by proxy. Jane’s role was quickly discovered, and
though she was careful to remain as apolitical as possible in her public statements (“I don’t want anyone to have blood on
their hands”), the board was irate. They demanded what they had the brazenness to call justice.
So her enrollment at Valeran had come to pass. Jane was the only student at the academy to have ended up there out of moral
courage and not out of a lack of it. Even after two years, she remained unfalteringly kind, never falling prey to the embittered
cynicism that Valeran ordinarily engendered. Her fellow students were friends and colleagues, not competition.