by S. B. Divya
“Here on Eko-Yi, we live in a sustainable fashion. We practice setting aside the ego. We release ourselves from permanence and possession, and the suffering that accompanies them. What we attempt is not easy, and even our greatest leaders, like Kanata-san, can fall into this trap. While his recent decision to leave us made me sad, I can understand that he acted according to his dharma. I have done my best to resist the urges that led to his choices, but I’m also human. I must struggle every day to overcome my emotional attachments. I welcome this opportunity as your leader to move us in a new direction and share our ideals with the world.
“In order to usher in an era of peace and enlightenment, Neo-Buddhism must go beyond its ancestors to find the neutral point between action and apathy. We cannot avoid all pain and suffering. Rebirth arrives after death. Fire cleanses and makes room for new growth. We must not be afraid to destroy the temporary trappings of life in order to rise above them. As the Buddha said, ‘All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation.’ If the people of Earth are unwilling or unable to make the effort, then it’s our duty—our dharma—to deliver enlightenment to them.”
Welga shrank the feed size in her visual and expanded a box with basic information about the monk. She scanned it as the speech continued. Ao Tara was currently the abbot of Eko-Yi, head of the station council. She had become an ordained monk in 2092 and joined the council in 2094, assuming leadership very recently, two days after the attack on Briella Jackson.
“For too long,” Ao Tara said, “the world has embraced Western dualistic thought. Black or white. Right or wrong. Animal or machine. Living or dead. An enlightened future demands a radical change from that attitude. We must shed the way of the past, cleanse our thoughts, and make room for the right tomorrows. Part of that is to grow our numbers, to seek out those who can embrace our way.
“In less than a week, we will welcome a new group of residents. We invite our applicants to submit their genomes in advance to help with our decision process. Certain genetic limitations could disqualify someone from life in microgravity due to the types of treatments required. We also seek specific markers, especially in those under the age of twenty-five, to participate in the development of new adaptations. We look forward to their arrival.” She pressed her palms together in front of her chest. “Om amitabha hrih.”
The feed faded to black. Welga cleared it and subvocalized, “Por Qué, send my original genetic information to the appropriate person on Eko-Yi.”
She could tell that Ao Tara’s words held a great deal of subtext, and she would need to learn what the Neo-Buddhists believed before she could parse it all. Basic research indicated that their philosophical split from other Buddhist sects allowed them a greater involvement in the affairs of the world. They believed that monks should detach themselves from base desires, like sex or food, but also that they should guide the world along the noble eightfold path. They allowed that monks could serve as political leaders without violating their place in dharma. They sound like priests, Welga thought.
When Welga tried to dig deeper into what biogenetic adaptations worked on Eko-Yi, she hit a wall. Many of the residents opted for permanent gene alterations to help their bodies cope with life in orbit. Eko-Yi’s designs aligned with the work from the other ten space stations, but they’d kept confidential their designs for pills, microbiota, and macro-scale alterations like bone implants. She couldn’t find any recorded streams of medical procedures that weren’t curated.
Unlike the camera swarms on Earth, the feeds from space were always buffered and controlled to help regulate their power consumption. She had no live view of the people and their habits. From what she could see, the permanent residents on Eko-Yi were adults, with a smaller number of teenagers and seniors. Children could only visit, to avoid the impact of microgravity on their growth. They preferred applicants who didn’t want kids or who had teens.
Maybe my synaptic tremor will disqualify me from living there. She didn’t relish the idea of moving to Eko-Yi—one of the stations more closely aligned to US culture would have been her first choice—but considering how few people lived up there, Eko-Yi was better than nothing. She wouldn’t have to scrounge for work on a station. No more worrying about tips. She might even put her love of food to good use, though she’d need a new set of cooking skills, and she’d miss interacting with her small but loyal following on Earth. If only their seats for moving off-world had come at a better time.
But as she cleared her visual of Eko-Yi, headlines and alerts popped up with images of destruction wreaked on processing plants around the globe. The Machinehood had struck again, this time with help from copycats and sympathizers, like that prote setting the bomb at the refinery. The chance of stopping them before the launch dwindled as the scale of the attacks expanded. If she had to choose between space and this fight, she would go with the latter.
* * *
Olafson had preordered a car, which drove them from the terminal to Virginia. They arrived at a familiar single-story office tucked in a grove of mature trees. This building—one of the most secure in the entire country—had been Welga’s home base after choosing Advanced Technology and Intelligence as her area of specialty. A mix of nostalgia and trepidation stabbed her at seeing it again. She’d met Connor in a third-floor conference room here. She’d paid no attention to the quiet white guy through the entire briefing, not until he spoke a single sentence and delivered the most insightful comment of the meeting. Captain Jack Travis had planned their squad’s final mission in a basement office. She’d spent hours with him, reviewing the plan. And the last time she’d walked out of this building, with Connor at her side, she’d sworn never to work for the government again.
Yet here she was. What did that say about her?
That you’re committed to people over politics. You will do whatever it takes to save innocent lives. To complete the objective, you have to believe that to the core of your being. You have to be ready to sacrifice yourself for the good of your people. She could hear the words in Jack’s voice. Like Mama’s ghost in Phoenix, her commander’s spirit would haunt her through these halls. By keeping her promise to her mother, Welga had set aside the chance to get justice for her death. She’d made no such commitment to her commander. If Operation Organica took her back to the Maghreb, she might get a second chance to finish what they’d started nine years before and, this time, to do it without being undercut by her own president. She could tear open the al-Muwahhidun empire for all the world to see. And then… even if it took years… maybe they could find her captain and her fallen sisters and bring them home.
They stopped in the foyer to verify their identities. She and Olafson swabbed inside their cheeks and placed the samples into a receptacle. Like every updated government building, this one had grass flooring, solar lighting, and low-profile plants lining the inside walls. Unlike many others, though, it also had an air-purge entry in addition to the usual threshold filter, and a network sniffer. No form of wireless communication was allowed inside, not even access to their agents, and every piece of electronics had strict emissions controls. High-speed fans blew stray microdrones outward while they were scanned for devices embedded in clothing or body parts. After several minutes, the inner door allowed them through.
A medic-bot and an attendant nurse saw to Welga in a spare office, where she could simultaneously make her report. Sunlight filled the room via a conduit that terminated in the ceiling. The nurse handed a notepad and a tether to Welga. The cuff at the end of the tether fit over her wrist and transmitted directly to her subcutaneous network interface. The cable snaked into the wall behind her recliner.
Welga found the video feeds from the start of the refinery attack. The recordings came from multiple swarms and angles. Based on the firing patterns, at least two camouflaged androids had attacked out front. Scanning the interior feeds, she found a view of Connor and herself. Welga followed their passage through t
he warehouse: the protester firing wildly, the explosion, their bodies flung like rag dolls… and then, nothing. Her body lay there for two minutes and twenty-two seconds—the same amount Por Qué gave her—then crawled to Connor’s prone form.
What the hell? Where’s the Machinehood creature who talked to me? Had she hallucinated those dark brown eyes? No, not with the details of the horrible, charred flesh vivid in her memory. The metal gleaming underneath. Olafson had said the Machinehood could hack secure comms. They must have hacked the microdrones. Or the stellas that routed communication. Or the storage facilities that held the world’s data. But how could they access those devices without being detected? Did they have people on the inside working them? Machine rights protesters often rigged bots to conduct attacks, but this pointed to far more sophisticated techniques. The web of global data and communications was vast, and the sheer numbers involved made Welga’s thoughts spin. Where would they start to look for the weak links? How would they fight an enemy that could listen to their secure communications in the field?
She made a note in her report about the conflict between the recording and her memories, describing her recollection as best as she could. Everything had happened so fast, and she’d been hazy with pain during the encounter with the Machinehood operative. She could clearly recall their appearance. The reek of smoke and the acrid chemical taste in her throat. But positioning, timing, sounds… not so much.
Once upon a time, people had no other option than to trust their fallible brains, but she’d never had to, not even in the Maghreb. They’d carried hardware to record their experiences while in the blackout zones. Everywhere else, the stellas made local storage superfluous, and only the most paranoid used it. If the Machinehood had a way to access data servers or interrupt network communications, the JIA might need to resort to the same methods they’d used to deal with the al-Muwahhidun.
The medic-bot announced that it had finished poking and scanning her body. Its findings appeared on a screen at the end of its arm. As Welga and the nurse read it, Olafson entered and looked over Welga’s shoulder. He pointed a slender brown finger at the second of three red flags. The first indicated that Welga needed a multiday course of skin juvers and microbials for the new burns. The second outed her seizures and continued anomalous neuromuscular synaptic activity—using those exact words. The third said her forearms must remain immobilized for the next thirty-six hours while her fractured bones knit and set. She’d have to leave her sleeves rigid for the duration.
The nurse spoke first. “Your genetic history indicates a possible predisposition to adverse effects from certain neurological modifiers. We’ll have to restrict your pill access until your condition is cleared.”
Welga gave Olafson a baffled, indignant shrug. “My flow restrictions are old news.” I have no idea what’s going on. Truth. Sort of.
“Thank you,” he said to the nurse. “I’ll authorize an emergency override of the flags and get the director’s approval, as well.” He turned to Welga. “I’m sure Officer Ramírez will look into this once the urgency of present conditions abates.”
“Of course,” she promised.
The medic-bot extended a tray that held a box full of drugs and pills marked by date and time. Next to the container sat a microcard.
“A three-day supply,” the bot said. “And a prescription to dispense the remainder from any device.”
Olafson escorted Welga to the briefing room, a windowless rectangle with an oval table at the center. Twenty people filled the chairs around it. Others stood. She and Olafson leaned against the rear wall. The director took a position up front with a giant flat-screen behind her. Catherine Rice had a crop of iron-gray hair and wore a pantsuit in navy blue. Sharp brown eyes nestled above high cheekbones with a healthy tan.
More people entered. Welga winced as someone bumped into her side.
Director Rice raised a hand for quiet. “First, I would like to formally introduce everyone in this room to each other.” She named them individually before uttering the code word for the project: “Organica.”
Welga recognized some of them, including Anne Crawford. She sat in her wheelchair near the door, her hair still a waterfall of stick-straight blond. The forensics lab tech had helped Welga and Captain Travis put together the final clues before the Marrakech operation. She’d make a good asset for this team.
More than a few eyebrows rose when the director mentioned Welga’s name, but they kept their faces turned to the front of the room. No surprise—this was a disciplined group.
The director continued, “Our primary objective continues to be the live capture and retrieval of a Machinehood operative. We have not identified the exact trigger mechanisms that cause them to explode, but organic death appears to be one of them. They have also triggered when capture was imminent. Thanks to the quick work of Olga Ramírez in Chennai, we have obtained a sample of the inorganic metal in one of the bodies. Unlike the samples obtained after incineration, this one has genetic material intact. Unfortunately, the DNA has no match within any of our databases. Details are in the latest analysis report. General evidence confirms that their bodies include organic and electronic components, and we view the rumors of a sentient artificial intelligence as a distraction.
“At present, we believe the Machinehood is an extremist group backed by deep pockets, possibly the al-Muwahhidun empire. Ramírez has a lucky charm, because she also received this, from a known source who will remain anonymous for their protection.” Rice played the video clip from Nithya’s teammate. “As you can see,” she said, freezing the final frame, “this person wears the white uniform typical of an al-Muwahhidun loyalist who is allowed to leave the empire’s borders. We’re not sure if they’re a soldier or a trader, but they appear to have a similar internal structure to the Machinehood’s operatives. While we have no reason to believe that this video has been modified, neither do we have hard evidence to corroborate it. This is why we’ll be assembling a team to go to the Maghreb. Obtaining such evidence will be their primary objective.”
This time, heads turned to look at Welga. After that statement, everyone could figure out why the agency had brought her in. Did they trust her to get the job done? It wasn’t my fault We were set up to fail. She couldn’t help seeing suspicion on the faces around her—maybe because she felt the same way. She forced her own expression to neutral. Never let them see your weakness. Captain Travis had drilled that into her over their many games of chess. She found herself glancing toward the center-left of the table, expecting to see him where he always sat. Would he approve of her being here, putting her trust in another unproven administration? Am I being stupid, or am I doing the right thing?
“The details are being worked out,” Director Rice continued. “We’ll be operating alongside other countries’ intelligence agencies. They aren’t sharing much, but you can be damn sure they aren’t stupid. When they see us moving on the caliph, they’ll want to follow. Our secondary objectives at this time are to find the Machinehood’s funding source, which is complicated by them not having a registered tip jar, locate the sites of component manufacture, and spread counterintelligence to maintain calm.”
WAIs couldn’t possess currency, but machine rights people had argued that they should in preparation for the first sentient artificial intelligence. Some human being had funded the design and build for the Machinehood operatives, but if the caliph was behind it, what was his motive? And how had they hidden the money trail? Welga recalled the altered two minutes and twenty-two seconds of the refinery attack. If the Machinehood had access to data storage and communication networks, it would explain how they’d covered all their digital footprints in spite of thousands of gigsters—and governments—searching for them.
“The popular theory that a SAI is behind all this works in favor of our field agents to investigate without too much suspicion.” The screen behind the director showed a battered kitchen lying by the side of a road. “The cost, however, is increased vio
lence and suspicion against existing bots and WAIs. Many civilians believe the Machinehood will hack the devices in their homes and turn them evil. We don’t believe they’re capable of this, but their next move remains unknown and significant, given that their one-week timer expires today. Wireless communications are particularly vulnerable.”
Damn right they are.
“All fieldwork therefore includes two primary constraints: one, you will conduct interrogations in person, at a secure facility, and always accompanied by a second agent. Two, you will not be allowed the assistance of any analytical or tactical bots. Any questions?”
The whole room tried to speak at once. Welga held her broken arms and wished the goddamn pain drugs would kick in. After years of working as a shield, the restriction against bots in the field didn’t bother her. Shields never used them—it didn’t look good. The interrogation constraint didn’t surprise her either, not in a matter this sensitive. All the counterintelligence work in the Maghreb followed the same protocol, though they had tents as their secure facilities while overseas.
Olafson murmured, “You have an alcove assigned within the building. Go review the full intel report.”
“If I’m going to the Maghreb, I’d like to stay.”
“I don’t know anything for sure, but Rice isn’t stupid. She’s going to make sure your talents and experience are put to good use. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve checked in with her.”