When Ardmore opened his eyes, Burke was looking at him.
“What the hell are we dealing with here, Jimmy? A multi-generational effort? Really?”
“Apparently so.”
“Who could that even be?”
“Well, let’s consider the options,” Ardmore said. “What sort of organization is multi-generational?”
“Families, for sure.”
“Yes. That’s the first thing I think of.”
“Well, a bunch of the sector governors have been effectively hereditary for a while,” Burke said.
“Yes. And there are the various descendants of the royalty of various star kingdoms.”
“But all those star kingdoms have been a part of Sintar for centuries, Jimmy.”
“They still play-act the roles, for tourists and such. Go see the beautiful palace. See people run around in period costumes and call each other Your Highness and all that.”
“They still do that? After all these years?”
Ardmore shrugged.
“Pays the bills, Gail.”
“I suppose. In that case, there are the politicians of the old Democracy of Planets. There had been a lot of political families there, too.”
“And the plutocrats behind the scenes,” Ardmore said.
“That’s another one. The wealthy families that keep passing money and power down from generation to generation. Like organized crime or the Stauss-Becker family, for example.”
“They’re on our side, Gail.”
“I hope so, Jimmy. They’ve been Imperial loyalists for a long time, so I hope nothing went sideways with them a hundred years back.”
“That would be a disappointment, wouldn’t it? After all these years.”
“So, other than families, who else can undertake a multi-generational project?” Burke asked.
“Religions can. And have. But we don’t have any major religions going through a secular-power phase right now. Those usually last a few centuries, and don’t pop up out of nowhere. There’s a chance, but I think it’s a slim one.”
“OK, so back to families, Jimmy. We have the sector governors. The old hereditary nobility. The dynastic commercial or crime families. The old DP political families. Some subset of one of them, anyway. How do we find them?”
“It might be worse than that, Gail. What if it’s all of them?”
“All of them?”
“Well, some members of all those categories, anyway. Anyone with an axe to grind. This effort isn’t by one or two people. Ultimately, it will end up with one or two people controlling everything. That’s how these things always work out. Once everything is smashed, one guy will take over and smash all his former allies. But I think this is a bigger group than half a dozen people. There are likely dozens of hangers-on, all being seduced by a return to the former glory of their families. It could be people from all four of those categories.”
“With someone waving the baton,” Burke said.
“Some central group, at least. Yes.”
“But to what end? Why do this? Everybody’s better off if the Empire is successful. Why break it?”
“There are always people who seek to better their position by worsening someone else’s,” Ardmore said.
“Even if, over the long term, they’re worse off, too?”
“Even so. Most people don’t measure how well off they are in absolute terms, but only in comparison to others.”
“Well, that’s a really scary concept, that someone has gathered every anti-Empire figure into one organization,” Burke said. “Can we prevail against something like that?”
“I’m not sure. Mostly, history goes from cusp to cusp. Some deflection point, where everything afterwards is different than it was before. Then it trends in that direction for a while. Rome defeating Carthage. The fall of Rome. The Black Plague. The Great War of the twentieth century.”
“Trajan’s defeat of the Alliance and the Democracy of Planets.”
“Exactly,” Ardmore said. “And the decline of the Empire with the switch to a hereditary Throne as well. So if they’re smart – and I have no doubt they are – they’ll try to force a cusp. Some huge event or series of events that changes everything. The outcome of that’s not easy to predict, however.”
“So what do we do, Jimmy?”
“Force our own cusp. But the outcome of that’s not easy for us to predict, either.”
“Shit,” Burke said with feeling. “Why can’t people leave well enough alone?”
Becker
Franz Becker was also getting reports from his own investigators, including his best financial analysis group, under Elizabeth Schoenhorst.
“There are two categories, sir. The things we managed to find out, and the things we couldn’t make any progress on. Let me talk about what we found out first.
“One conclusion that’s reasonable to make is there’s big money behind this, and over a long period of time. That’s telling in and of itself. The sheer number of people in the nanite business alone who are being paid off, and the amounts they’re being paid, speak to that.
“We were able to track something of those amounts. Retired executives in the health maintenance nanite sector live in higher relative splendor than their counterparts in the other nanite sectors. They live on large country estates, with staff. Those estates are, by and large, titled under someone else’s ID. We were able to determine, with near certainty, that those IDs are aliases for the executives themselves. That’s how they were being paid, by transfers into accounts under those aliases.
“Moving from the retirees to the active executives, we were able to establish that many of them have similar arrangements, especially late in their careers.
“The ability to open such bogus accounts is also interesting, sir. These were made possible as a by-product of some accounting reforms put in place under Emperor Augustus II, over a hundred years ago. That those changes were made to support this effort we take as a serious possibility.
“It also speaks to how long this effort has been underway. Some of those executives retired twenty or more years ago after decades in the industry. This is not something that sprang up in even the last thirty years or so. It goes back much further.
“We were also able to determine that being an executive in the health maintenance nanite industry is considerably less healthy than other sectors. The average age at death is lower, primarily due to people dying quite a bit prematurely.”
“Someone who wasn’t comfortable with the arrangement, and was wavering on making a stink, Ms. Schoenhorst?”
“It seems likely, sir. Some of them were accidents, and some were sudden deaths of the kind that may, in retrospect, have been caused by nanite hacking.
“Now, what were we not able to find out? We were not able to determine who is making the payments. Someone went to a great deal of trouble to launder the money. We couldn’t find any fingerprints on it at all. Some of this was also assisted by the accounting reforms of Augustus II, which again is certainly suggestive.
“We were also not able to determine who benefits from these deaths. There were no obvious profit plays here. With specific regard to the assassination attempt on the Empress Arsinoe, nobody took any market positions that would conceivably have benefitted from that sort of disruption. There were no suspicious market positions like those Otto Stauss saw before the Great Chaos of 10 GE.
“What we do see is the victims of these murders who we’ve tentatively identified, including the Empress Julia, were all Throne loyalists. People pushing for some reform or other, or people trying to strengthen the Throne. We didn’t find any such suspicious deaths among those who have been pushing to destabilize the Empire, just among those trying to shore it up. It is a very broad anti-Empire push.
“The last conclusion we can draw from this, sir, is you, your family, and your key executives are in a great deal of danger. It is our recommendation that you all flush the existing nanites and then reload the basic nanite p
ackage as soon as possible. In particular, we feel if the other side gets wind the Emperor is on to the premium nanites package, they might strike a large number of Throne loyalists on the very short term.
“We do have technology solutions for maintaining contact and control without VR, over the QE system, which will allow you to bridge the two-week period it will take to be up and operating again on a more robust nanite package.”
“Which is to say the basic nanite package, Ms. Schoenhorst?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do we know about those accounting reforms? Did you look at those, Ms. Schoenhorst?”
“Yes, sir. We’re analyzing the whole package to find out what other loopholes it opened.”
“Good. And the people who were pushing it, Ms. Schoenhorst?”
“That’s harder, sir. We don’t have access to any private communications to the Emperor that may have been pushing for it. We have some public statements, but not much. Nothing we’ve been able to conclude anything from.”
“Very well, Ms. Schoenhorst. Thank you.”
Becker cut the channel.
Becker sat and considered. Schoenhorst couldn’t say who it was, but Becker had his guesses. The most vehement anti-Throne people he could think of were the more radical sector governors led by Manfred von Hesse, the descendants of the erstwhile nobility of the Alliance nations, and the former plutocrats who ran the Democracy of Planets behind the scenes for centuries, until the Emperor Trajan executed a bunch of them and his own ancestor Otto Stauss separated them from a couple hundred trillion credits in the aftermath.
Which meant he was probably in their cross-hairs whenever they got around to their big push, whatever that would be. His son and heir as well, of course, and probably some of their high-level managers. And an attack on a reigning Empress probably meant their big push was close.
Becker needed to be careful, though. If he ordered everyone to flush nanites right now, and the other side got wind of it, they may take out any targets they had, including Imperial loyalists in the government and the governor’s mansions, both sector and provincial. That would not be good.
There was another issue. Whoever was behind this had a lot of money. Among his other traits, Becker had a lot of money. At this point, The Emperor Ptolemy and Empress Arsinoe wouldn’t have to be paranoid to wonder who their friends were. Best to address that as well.
Becker put in a meeting request, and waited for a response.
Becker got a response back, with a VR address and channel number he hadn’t seen before. When he logged into it, he realized with a shock he wasn’t in a simulation. Instead, he was in reality, through a VR projector at the far end. An even bigger shock set in when he realized he was in what must be the private living room of the Emperor and Empress.
The Empress was seated at one end of a sofa facing full-length windows that looked down Palace Mall in Imperial City, the shades and glass open on a beautiful evening in the Empire’s capital. She was sitting sidesaddle at one end, her long legs trailing out along the sofa’s seats. The Emperor sat in a club chair facing the sofa, his back to the windows. He didn’t so much sit in it as he wore it, filling the big chair. She was dressed in loungers, while he was dressed in casual clothes.
Becker bowed to them.
“Your Majesties.”
“Join us, Mr. Becker,” Burke said, waving to the other club chair, directly opposite her.
“Thank you, Milady.”
“It’s evening here, Mr. Becker, and we were just relaxing after dinner,” Burke said. “We dare not go far from the medical people in the hallway. And I do not have my VR restored yet. So we decided it was easiest to see you here.”
“Yes, Milady. And I must say it’s good to see you doing so well in your recuperation from such a misadventure.”
“Thank you, Mr. Becker.”
“In any case, Mr. Becker,” Ardmore said, “it’s your meeting. Proceed.”
“Yes, Sire. I have been investigating this whole affair since Your Majesty’s warning. Your investigations probably have turned up the same things as mine. Someone with a lot of money has, for the better part of a hundred years, been working to undermine the Empire.
“Why? We can guess. It’s not money, because they already have a lot of money. They have to have a lot of money to pay those bribes to the nanite executives. So it’s power. Whenever it isn’t one, it’s the other.
“The ‘how’ we also know. Picking off key Imperial supporters in their prime, denying the Emperor their wisdom, counsel, and support, using the backdoor they engineered into the premium nanites package.
“The ‘who’ is a little harder. They’ve taken great pains to launder the money they paid to their – subordinates, perhaps? Henchmen? We’ve found the money, as I’m sure you have, and how it got there, but the fingerprints are missing.
“I will say, for the record, it is not me or any of mine. We certainly have the funds to do something like this, but that’s not how we play the game. We much prefer a stable Empire for our commercial activity. The Stauss-Becker family has no interest in political power, and never has had.”
“We had made that determination ourselves, Mr. Becker, but it is nice to hear you affirm it,” Burke said.
“Thank you, Milady. So we are left with the questions of who and when. Who is doing this? Who seeks power? And when are they going to make their move?
“I think an attack on a reigning Empress indicates their big move is coming soon. Perhaps they see the confusion resulting from such a move as their big opportunity. That they can’t know yet one way or the other must be frustrating. But they will know soon.
“And if we are seen to move to block them – such as by having some of our supporters flush their nanites – they may accelerate whatever timetable they have to strike as many of our people as they can before they can make themselves immune.”
“Do you suggest we not have people flush the nanites, Mr. Becker?” Ardmore asked.
“No, Sire. I’m saying all our people need to do it at once, so by the time they hear about it, there’s no way to strike back.”
“I’m not sure that kind of simultaneity flushing the nanites is possible, Mr. Becker,” Burke said. “I’m not sure everyone can get hold of the search-and-destroy nanites fast enough.”
“But it doesn’t have to be simultaneous, Milady. The flushing, that is. A VR suppressor works in both directions. And I think everyone has a VR suppressor available. Wear a personal VR suppressor, and you’re immune to an attack until you can do the flush.”
“Of course!” Burke said. “Mr. Becker, that is pure genius. Which means we are still left with the question of ‘who?’”
“Yes, Milady, and I’m sure you have your suspicions there as well as I do. Mine center around the wealthy families that ran the Democracy of Planets from behind the scenes. They ruled the DP for nearly a millennium. A long-term plan to take back control fits them better than the other possibility, the embittered erstwhile nobility of the Alliance countries.”
“You don’t consider the sector governors a likely candidate, Mr. Becker?” Ardmore asked.
“No, Sire. They are basically politicians, and most of them couldn’t organize an orgy in a brothel. They may be tools of the leadership, even funding the effort with sector tax dollars, but my suspicions center on the plutocrats.”
Ardmore nodded and looked at Burke.
“So what now, Mr. Becker?” she asked.
“I think we should warn a very broad swath of people immediately, Milady. All the sector, provincial, and planetary governors. All the big commercial families. Let everyone know all at once. I was going to warn all my people, but realized if I did, they might strike against all your political allies. At the same time, I was worried you would warn your political allies, and they might strike against all my commercial partners. But if we warn everyone at once, they will have few targets.”
“Won’t we be telling them we’re on to them, Mr. Beck
er?” Burke asked.
“Not necessarily, Milady. My thought was we just tell everyone criminal elements have hacked the premium nanites, and tell them to get on a VR suppressor before they can be attacked, and flush their nanites and reload with the basic nanites as soon as they can. I also thought to warn the former DP plutocrat families along with everyone else.”
“I see,” Burke said, nodding. “They will think we have no clue who it is.”
“Yes, Milady. And in truth it may not be them. But that’s not my suspicion.”
“What else, Mr. Becker?” Burke asked.
“Track the genealogy of those families. Of the hundred-plus people the Emperor Trajan executed for their attempt on the Throne, find out where all their descendants are. See if there’s a pattern. If they have insinuated themselves into key positions across the Empire.”
“Wouldn’t the scions of wealthy families do that anyway, Mr. Becker?” Ardmore asked.
“Yes and no, Sire. I would certainly expect them to be in major commercial interests, and perhaps lobbying sector governors and the like. I wouldn’t expect them to have, say, Housekeeping positions here in the Imperial Palace, or positions as advisers or hangers-on to erstwhile nobility, unless it was in furtherance of a scheme. And we may see a pattern in terms of where we find them.”
“Anything else, Mr. Becker?” Burke asked.
“There’s one other thing my people are looking at right now, Milady. The accounting reforms of Augustus II opened up a lot of loopholes these people have exploited. We have no visibility into the advice Augustus II received on his reforms, but you might. Who was behind these changes?”
“I am looking into that, Mr. Becker,” Ardmore said.
“Excellent, Sire. Also, if the amount of money behind this is as large as we think it is – and if it’s being augmented by contributions of sector taxes by allied sector governors – we should be able to find it. The money, that is. I think there’s a very large amount of money and securities being held in bogus accounts, under aliases. If we can find them and impound them, we can cripple their ability to pay their henchmen. And the thing about henchmen is, when the money stops, they stop being henchmen.”
EMPIRE: Resistance Page 5