by Vernor Vinge
Bob walked around the bunker, transformed the green plastic walls into windows on the Southern California night. The air filled with abstractions, the status of his people and his equipment, the reorganization of his share of the analyst pool. He grabbed some coffee from the machine by the door and settled down at a very ordinary desk just a few feet from the launch area.
“Patrick?”
His second-in-command appeared across the table. “Sir?”
“Who-all have we got tonight?” An unnecessary question, but Patrick Westin produced the official list. The Marine Expeditionary Group consisted of four twelve-marine maneuver teams. Call them squads; everyone else did. Back in the twentieth century, Bob’s “command” would have rated a second lieutenant. On the other hand, the MEG controlled thousands of vehicles (though most were the size of model airplanes) and enough firepower to finish almost any war in history. Most important to Bob Gu: everyone in his group had been through combat training as tough as any in the past. They were marines. Patrick called them all in for a short meeting. The room stretched back from around Bob’s desk and for a few moments pretended to be an auditorium. Everyone looked cool; it had been a long time since anything had gone Really Wrong within CONUS. And we’re a big part of the reason why.
“We’ll be here four hours,” said Bob. “Hopefully, the time will be a very boring snoop. As long as that’s the case, you’re free to stay in staff areas adjacent to your vehicles. But most of you have been on my watch before. You know I want you to keep your eyes open. Keep up with the analysts.” He waved at the analyst pool. For a CONUS Southwest watch, this amounted to about fifteen hundred dedicated specialists, but with connections leading down to hundreds of thousands of services and millions of embedded processors. Tonight, Alice was in charge of the pool, and already the changes were evident, the three-dimensional rat’s nest transformed with a clarity rarely seen outside of managers’ dreams. Aside from her marvelous reorganization, the display was completely conventional. Between the humans who had clearance and could communicate directly there were hundreds of color-coded associational threads. The mass of the lower levels was constantly aflicker, weights and assessments and connections shifting from second to second.
Bob pointed at the reddish threat wackos that were always part of the mix. “What have we got to worry about for the next four hours?” The analysts behind the red nodes spewed out their consensus list and supporting pointers.
But even the paranoids didn’t have much to say tonight:
Action issues
Possible Anti-Librareome protest at UCSD
Belief circle riot a near certainty
Possible organized participants
Jerzy Hacek belief circle
CIA assessment of Indo-European connection
Scooch-a-mout belief circle
CIA assessment of Central African connection
CIA assessment of Sub-Saharan connection
CIA assessment of Paraguay connection
RIAA report to Congress
Commercial entities
Possible threats to infrastructure
Proximity to Critical National Security Sites
General Genomics
Huertas International
Increased illegal computation imports
Orange County
Los Angeles County
Off-scale low probability estimate linking preceding items
Law enforcement issues
FBI vice raid at Las Vegas Splendor Farm, a near certain event
Possible request for intelligence support
DEA enhancement-drug raids in Kern County
Possible request for intelligence support
Possible out-of-area activity
Pacific Islander settlements in Alberta
Persons of Interest
Arizona
California
San Diego County
Increased short-term South Asian visitors
Others
Nevada
Recusal advisements
Bob let the list hang for a moment.
“Ha,” said one of the gunnies. “At least the policías won’t be a problem.” Denying the law-enforcement requests should be easy tonight, not like for kidnapping or murder prevention.
A tech sergeant flickered highlights across the UCSD event cluster. “This is what will keep us busy.” Her light paused, expanding on definitions. “What? This is a fight between belief circles? I never heard of such a thing.”
One of the youngest marines laughed. “You’re just getting old, Nancy. Cross-belief strife is tragic new.”
Bob didn’t try to parse the slang, but he’d heard enough from Dad and Miri to get the point. He expanded the description of the expected riot. “It looks like a combination of twentieth-century protest and modern gaming. It should be as safe as most public events. The problem is the location.” There was so much bio-lab work near UCSD that any instability was a concern. “This is worth a lot of your attention. Note the stats on foreign interest.” He moved on to the links in Persons of Interest. As usual, those expanded into the tens of thousands. At one point or another almost everyone—unless they were dead, in which case they might still count for bioterror paranoia—came under scrutiny. “I’m not going to ask you to dredge through the PoI or this watch will last all year. But follow what the spooks throw up at you—and watch for real-time changes.” That last was classic wisdom, proven in dozens of disasters and disasters-avoided so far this century. The analysts always had a million suspicions, but when they hit the hard cold world of real time, success depended on whether the operational folks had been paying attention.
And then there was the item that stood a little down from all the others: Recusal Advisements, that is, team members who might somehow compromise this watch. Normally, that was the most paranoid list of all—but his crew would see no cloud of detail here, not even links. Such advice was Eyes Only for himself and his backups. In practice, if there had been any serious problems there, they would have been taken care of well before this briefing.
“Questions?”
He looked around. There was a moment of silence, marines drinking in the details of the moment, answering a lot of questions for themselves. Then the young slang-slinger spoke up. “Sir, the equipment, is it the same as for a technical-threat overseas mission?”
Bob looked back into the young eyes. “The boost gear is lighter than usual…That’s the only difference, Corporal. We’re here to protect, but ultimately that means to protect the whole country.” The whole world, some would say. “So, yes, we’re carrying a full strategic load.” He leaned back and gave a look that included all his marines. “I don’t expect any problems. If we pay attention and do our jobs, this will be just another peaceful evening for the people of California.”
He dismissed the crew, and the room shrank to its true dimensions. Patrick Westin had a few follow-up questions about squad deployment, and then his image departed, too. Bob Gu turned down his augmentation and for a brief moment there was just his table and chair, sitting by the coffee machine. On his right was the doorway that led to real hardware. With luck, he wouldn’t see any of that tonight.
Bob --> Alice:
Alice --> Bob:
He finished his coffee and brought back his visuals, now fully customized. He checked again with Cheryl Grant. She was ready to go. Okay, for the record:
Gu --> Grant:
ey would have to stay that way for four hours—not a long time, but about the longest you could remain watch-alert without drugs.
Bob’s job was different. He was like a sheepdog running around the outside of the flock, skittering from topic to topic. He watched where marines and analysts were spending their time. This was partly to stay ahead of hotspots, partly to detect attentional holes. For a moment, he looked down from a popular-press viewpoint over UCSD. This…event…was going to involve a lot of demonstrators, many of them physically present. And network stats showed that a flash crowd situation was possible on top of that. He wondered if Miri was surfing this.
The thought brought him back to the moment. He looked again at the Recusal Advisements. Half of his marines had relatives enrolled at UCSD. That was the big problem with a local snoop. Three of his people were actually part-time students at UCSD. The slang-slinger had a hobby of Scoochi decoration that involved a number of Bangalore fans. If this hadn’t been the kid’s duty night, he’d be down there on campus right now. But the analysts had done a minute-by-minute on the young fellow, going back fourteen months. There were some illegalities, some enhancement drug abuse, but nothing that would affect the mission.
Bob had searched the entire recusal tree. Now he ran off its pointers, boring deep. Dad didn’t show up. And I was sure he’d be mixed up in the Librareome thing. Not that that would be serious grounds for recusal. He was skittering too far afield, a common problem for commanders with latitude—
Xiu Xiang? The name was vaguely familiar, but it wouldn’t have popped out at him if his own name hadn’t been in the item. Xiang was one of about three hundred thousand people in CONUS Southwest who were currently of interest for tinkering with hardware. Much of that was illegal, of course; such people could be thrown to the FBI. But it was more productive simply to track them. Most of these people were benign hobbyists or intellectual-property cheats. Some were the hands for terrorist cults. And some were the analyst smarts behind those cults. Xiang had the intelligence and training to be in this last category, but so far the most interesting thing about her was the range of toys she had built, a regular museum of oddball electronics. And she was in one of Dad’s classes. That connection was marked “tenuous.”
But there was also a reference to Rainbows End Rest Home…This woman was Mom’s roomie! And all this time he’d worried about how dull life must be for Mom nowadays. What a team: the mad scientist and his mother the shrink and—What’s this? Weeks of do-it-yourself snooping that Miri and Mom and this Xiang had run on Dad. A dozen surmises rose to mind, and—Mission, mission, keep your eyes on the mission. He resolutely pushed all the personal issues aside. The main thing this proved was the stupidity of running watches with local personnel.
Bob grabbed another coffee and settled back to watch the views of UCSD and the night’s other hotspots. In the modern military, losing concentration was much the same sin as falling asleep on duty. It was time to get in the groove.
And still, a tiny internal voice did its best to distract: What in heaven’s name have Miri and Mom been up to?
MONDAY, 5:00 p.m. Finally.
Twilight was still colorful in the sky over La Jolla Shores when Robert drove into the traffic loop north of Warschawski Hall. He headed east on foot, toward the Geisel Library.
“Ready for the big night, my man?” That was the Stranger-Sharif, walking beside him. Passersby didn’t seem to see his green-faced companion.
Robert gave the Stranger a sour look. “I’m ready to see you deliver.”
“Don’t worry. If we succeed tonight, you’ll have your peculiar genius fully back, my word on it.”
Robert grunted. Not for the first time he speculated on the lunacy of the terminally desperate.
“And don’t look so discouraged, Professor. You’ve already done your hardest part. Tonight it’s mainly Tommie Parker who has to get things straight.”
“Tommie? I wonder.”
“You wonder?” The Stranger’s smile broadened. “So you’ve identified Tommie’s ‘miracle design bureau’? Poor Tommie. He’s the only one of you who thinks he’s running free. In fact, he thinks I’m just one of his best collaborators. See, I can be nice when that’s absolutely necessary.”
There were as many people here as Robert had ever seen on a campus evening in his grad-school days. Up ahead, in the direction of the library, light hung in the sky, brighter than the twilight behind them. Looking down from the tops of the eucalyptus trees, Robert could see crowds along the esplanades south and east of the library. There seemed to be several groups, not mixing. “What’s going on?” That must be the distraction Tommie had promised; it was far larger than Winnie’s Librareome demonstration.
“Heh. I’ve planned extraordinary festivities around the library tonight; almost everybody’s invited, especially staff from General Genomics labs. But not you. I suggest we detour around the library.”
“But that was the rendezvous point—”
“It’s already too busy. We’ll head for Pilchner Hall direct. This way, please.” The Stranger pointed to the right, into dark eucalyptus trees.
MEANTIME, IN THE GenGen labs…
Sheila Hanson popped up half an hour into the nightshift. “You ready, Tim?”
Tim Huynh sat back from his desk, and gestured up his little helpers. “We’re ready, boss.” He stepped into the corridor and followed Hanson’s come-hither arrows up the stairs. She and the rest of her lab techs were already gathered round the surface entrance. Four or five were recent graduates. The rest—like Timothy Huynh himself—were work-study students. “You’re sure this isn’t going to lose us our jobs?” Belief-circle gaming was all very well outside of work, but Huynh would never have considered this adventure if his own supervisor hadn’t suggested it.
Hanson laughed, “I told you. GenGen regards this battle as a form of public service. Besides, it will embarrass Huertas International.” Her glance took in all of them, GenGen’s entire night crew except for regulomics. Sheila’s explanation was enough for Tim. Once upon a time, he had really looked forward to working at GenGen. How many people got to see—in person—the lab equipment that their college majors were built upon? But more often than not, his job came down to unwedging overenthusiastic cleaning robots, and hauling non-prepped cargo. Yes, sometimes there were real problems, problems where you got to consult with users and help customize their experiment setup. But then you spent days devising automation so that wouldn’t happen again. Not one of the crewmembers, even the ones who weren’t Scooch-a-moutis, looked unhappy about tonight’s little diversion.
“Okay, everybody,” said Sheila, “let’s see you look properly formed.” They slipped into their Scoochi characters. There were pofu-longs and dwelbs, and a great big shima-ping. The shima-ping was Sheila. She glanced at Huynh. “You can’t be the Scooch-a-mout, Tim. That’s reserved.”
“But I’m commanding the critters.” He waved at the helper bots that had followed him up the stairs.
“You’re guiding them, Tim. You can be a Lesser Scooch-a-mout.”
“Okay.” He shifted form. These were all world-class designs, not seen before tonight. He doubted very much that any of them would remain reserved for long, but if Sheila wanted to play the beliefs strictly, he wasn’t going to be the one to break the circle.
They trooped out the doors, into the evening twilight. There was still color in the tops of the eucalyptus. South, across the ravines, their goal was a vast double pyramid, glassy-faceted on top, dark and be-vined below. And that was the real, naked-eye view! The Geisel Library. As they moved along, Sheila and others were fitting their vision over the world. This hadn’t been rehearsed. It was designed as a surprise for the Hacekeans, but even more as a surprise for the world that would soon be coming down to watch. One by one, the eucs made little popping noises and suddenly were transformed into moonflower trees, their leaves fluorescent in the twilight.
“We have been noticed,” someone said.
“O
f course. We’re all over. There are s’nice and got-a-runs coming from the Lit Building.”
“There’s fweks and liba-loos flying from our basement at the library!”
And every appearance sent a tiny fraction of a penny winging back up the Scoochi tree of creation. For once, Tim didn’t mind the rip-off. The Scooch-a-mout affiliance was as broad as any. Even hardware illegals at the edge of the world would benefit from the royalties.
Hanson --> Night Crew:
But GenGen had cleared them to go, and Timothy Huynh was having a ball. First, he laid down a consensus for the robots’ appearance. There were queeps and chirps, spitting and shooting in all directions. In reality, these were his four hundred mobile manipulators—known as “tweezer bots” in the business. They were barely fast enough to keep up with the humans. But he also had mapped megamunches and xoroshows and salsipueds—these onto his cleaner bots and sample carriers. Behind them lurked the two largest mechs in Huynh’s lab, combination forklifts and heavy-equipment installers; for now, they were tricked out as gray-masted blue ionipods. He had supplied the physical specs two weeks ago, when the prospect of this adventure had first floated around the labs. The resulting visual designs were spectacular, and meshed with the reality of the underlying robots and the touchy-feely gear that Huynh had attached to the bots’ hulls. If you patted the xoroshow on its haunches, you’d feel muscle sliding lithely under silky fur, just what your eyes were telling you. As long as they were confronted by only a few pairs of human hands, the haptics were fast enough to maintain the illusion. They were better than anything he’d ever touched on Pyramid Hill. Of course, the remote audience would benefit very little from that, but it would boost the morale of the Scoochis here in person, and undermine their opposite numbers among the Hacekeans.