“Do, uh,” she began, “do radios break nowadays?”

“No,” Zan said, “not really. Both the ship and the Huey had state-of-the-art satellite communications equipment. So it’s unlikely that there’s any kind of malfunction. We suspect an accident.”

Dagmar tried to imagine an accident that could take out a ship and a helicopter at the same time. Then she thought she would rather not imagine it-the crew of each craft were on a mission that involved her, after all, and if an accident had claimed them, it was all on her account…

“So,” Dagmar began, “do you send out a search party, or-”

“We’ll wait a few more hours in case there was a communications problem, and then contact the authorities in Singapore. But for you, darling, we’re going to get a new helicopter, and if necessary a new ship, so don’t worry.”

Dagmar closed her eyes. She could kill two whole new crews.

“Not to worry,” she said. “Right.”

“Things have calmed down a little in Jakarta. When the Palms burned, it scared everybody. So a lot of the local Islamic associations have mobilized to guard their own neighborhoods.”

“Islamic associations? They’re like-what, militias?”

All Dagmar could think about was Sunni and Shiite terrorists in Iraq, and that didn’t sound encouraging.

“Some of them are self-help groups,” Zan said, “but most of them are martial arts clubs.”

Bitter laughter exploded in Dagmar’s head. She thought of the film posters in the music store, with their bare-chested heroes. These were the same people that had looted the store and the hotel.

“They’re going to protect the neighborhoods with kung fu?” she asked.

“With silat,” Zan said seriously. “That’s the indigenous style. Indonesian martial arts always had a close relationship with religion.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course,” Zan said, “some of these groups are political. Some are pro-military, some are against. I’m sure none of them are for the government anymore, but they have different ideas about what kind of government to have next. So if they start fighting each other, there could be more problems.”

More problems, Dagmar thought.

As if murder and riots and starvation weren’t enough.

It was her hour of answering the phone. After Zan hung up, she heard from Austin. The squishy, warm feeling that came from talking to one of her oldest friends multiplied when Charlie called only a short while later.

He said he was trying to find a tanker aircraft to fly north of Sumatra in order to provide in-flight refueling for the new helicopter.

“How much is this costing you?” Dagmar asked.

“Your next Christmas bonus,” Charlie said. “Maybe.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Charlie said, “you’re not going to tell me that you love me again, are you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“Whatever I’m spending,” Charlie said, “I can afford. No one else, including me, is going without a Christmas bonus, okay?”

“Right,” said Dagmar.

“My Christmas bonus,” Charlie added, “is going to include a Maserati.” There was a pause.

“Have you been thinking about Planet Nine?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Dagmar. “Yes, I have.”

He liked what she told him.

Late that morning, Dagmar heard the throbbing of helicopters outside, and she dared to draw back the curtains and look out. The Palms stood like the one rotten black tooth in the city’s gleaming modernist smile. The fire had gone all the way to the roof. A few threads of smoke still rose from a window here and there.

The copters were orbiting behind the destroyed hotel, black, businesslike silhouettes spiraling to a landing somewhere to the northwest.

Evacuating the Japanese.

Dagmar couldn’t stand the sight of the Palms and let the curtains fall back into place.

She paced the room for a while, restless, and then went to the laptop she had been typing on when Tomer Zan had called. She was in the middle of a letter to the gamer she knew as LadyDayFan, thanking her for an email of concern.

Unfortunately I don’t know anybody in Jakarta, LadyDayFan had written, but let me know if there’s any way I can help.

Dagmar scrolled along her list of emails, answered and unanswered. There were even more than there had been the previous day, an impressive number. Many were from people that Dagmar knew only as online presences floating around the online game blogs.

She considered again this circle of which she was the temporary center, and the further circles that emanated from each of the members. There was a latent power in this group, a wide variety of skills and acquaintance. This group, she thought, could get things done.

Everyone, supposedly, was within six degrees of separation from everyone else.

Dagmar reflected that LadyDayFan maintained her own ARGRELATED online bulletin board, called Our Reality Network, where industry gossip was retailed and games were discussed, analyzed, and eventually solved.

The games that Dagmar created were designed to be solved. She created the puzzles, or suggested them to the team’s professional puzzle designers, and the solutions were buried somewhere for the players to find. The games were finite: they led to a particular place, like the wedding in Bengaluru, and then they were over.

Her current situation, which had her placed at a hotel in a state of Schrödingerlike uncertainty, was a puzzle that perhaps had no solution. Certainly she was incapable of solving it.

Perhaps, she thought, her dilemma could be solved not by any individual but by a Group Mind.

She sat down and began to type.

From: Dagmar

Subject: Indonesia

Perhaps you can help me after all. I seem to be at the center of a puzzle that is in need of a solution.

I’m at the Royal Jakarta Hotel, on the fourteenth floor. This is at 6°11’31.8”S, 106°49’19.48”E. The situation is deteriorating and I’m worried for my personal safety.

The embassy has been of no use at all.

I want to get out of Jakarta and to a country that isn’t having a revolution. My sole assets consist of US$180 in cash, a high-powered PDA/telephone, a computer, and some credit cards that don’t seem to be worth anything in the current situation.

Most of the police have gone home. The army has besieged the city but has not entered it. The government is holed up somewhere. The streets are in the hands of rioters or Islamic societies, most of which are composed of martial artists.

If you know of anyone who can help me, I’d appreciate hearing from them.

If you don’t, thanks anyway.

Bests,

Dagmar

She clicked the Send button without thinking, then sat back and wondered just what it was she’d set in motion.