by M. D. Cooper
Those icons flashed, updating the locations with individual names assigned to each.
“Jonesy, you, Charley, Terrance and—” he glanced over as an avatar flickered into existence, “Shannon will take the remaining four warehouses.”
There was a stir at that last announcement that Celia didn’t understand, but she noticed several individuals glance over at the newcomer with speculative eyes.
“Godel’s infrastructure is as agrarian as it is industrial,” Landon informed them. “Much of their economy is driven by the export of their harvests.” He glanced over at Celia for confirmation.
She nodded. “Although Barat grows much of its own food as well,” she explained, “the rest of the system relies upon Godel for its supplies.”
She took a deep breath, expelled it in one short explosive burst.
“As do our inhabitants. We have a population of almost five billion mouths to feed, as well as ranchers with livestock.” She smiled sadly. “The animals need to eat, too, you know.”
Celia saw glances being exchanged as what she said sank in. Landon acknowledged her words with a slow nod.
“I suppose I don’t need to tell you how important this operation is, nor how critical it is that we get it right.” His eyes swept the room. “Failure is not an option.”
Celia breathed a mental sigh of relief when she saw the resolve reflected in the eyes of the people sitting at the table. She returned her attention to Landon as the AI continued.
“Candidly, this whole situation sucks. I hate the idea of sending you out alone, without any form of backup. And I sure as hell hate that I’m sending some of you out on an op you’ve never run before.”
She sat up in alarm when she heard that, but Logan, seated next to her, placed a restraining hand on her arm.
“But to be frank, we have no choice. If these aren’t destroyed within seconds of each other, their destruction could trigger a warning back to Barat agents here on Godel. If that occurs, and they’re able to send an execute command out to the remainder of the DBCs before we can locate them and shut them down….”
He didn’t need to spell it out to them; they knew the ramifications. Celia could see it on their faces.
A man who looked strikingly like Terrance’s wife stirred, and the woman next to him, clad in what appeared to be a lab coat, cleared her throat. “Noa and I,” she said, indicating the man next to her, “are working on synthesizing a counteragent for the most likely vectors Barat will have the DBCs generate.”
Celia sent her thanks as Marta continued.
“This process is a bit like throwing a dart blindfolded,” the doctor cautioned. “The only way to guarantee that these things are stopped is to destroy them before they have a chance to release a biological agent.”
Silence filled the air as those in the room digested what had just been said. Then Landon spoke once more, his tone final.
“Simone has files for each of you on your targets. Study them. Solidify your plan. No points for style on this,” Landon warned. “Get in, neutralize, get out. Understood?”
All of them—human and AI alike—nodded.
“Good. Be ready with any questions an hour from now. One other thing,” he added, his gaze spearing each individual. “This isn’t a black op. It’s black-on-black. No one outside the people right here, right now in this expanse, is to ever know a thing about this operation, understood?”
GEHENNA
STELLAR DATE: 03.13.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: approaching Barat Main Spaceport
REGION: Barat, Little River
Calista gripped the side of her bunk with her one good hand as the warning chimes sounded, indicating the imminent loss of gravity as deceleration was cut.
At least I now know what those tones signify, she thought as she recalled the first time they had sounded at turnover, and she’d been caught unprepared.
Granted, her mind had still been fogged, and her body sluggish and aching from its abuse at the hands of her captors. She’d been woefully ill-equipped to deal with the sudden loss of apparent gravity…and its equally sudden return.
She’d suffered a fractured arm as a result—something her mednano would have repaired with ease, if she’d had any. Instead, her arm had hung useless at her side, and at an awkward angle, until they’d gathered her for another round of interrogation inside the autodoc.
The orderly had been annoyed at her involuntary cry when he’d attempted to immobilize her for the next round of examinations, and had tossed a temporary cast at her, ordering her to put it on. She’d been forced to wrestle it into place one-handed, and had very nearly passed out when the cast had inflated.
Then the next round of invasive exploration had begun.
That had been yesterday. By her reckoning, she’d been aboard this ship for three days now, the exact amount of time it would take to transit from the duty station to Barat.
She had no doubt this was her destination, and as her hand kept her now-floating body relatively stationary, she felt the minute adjustments only a pilot would notice, sure indication of a docking procedure underway.
As the ship settled into its mooring and came under the influence of a low-grav station, she released her hold and shuffled toward the plas window of her cell to stare through it with her one remaining eye. Her right hand clenched, while the fingers of her left hand, now immobilized by a rigid nano cast programmed to deteriorate within six weeks’ time, bent and flexed.
She tensed as, moments later, she felt the reverberation of footsteps through the sole of the deck as they approached her cell.
Showtime.
* * * * *
Hundreds of kilometers below, in the capital city of Hauptstadt, a chauffeured aircar pulled away from the exclusive penthouse that was Giovanni’s home. It was bound for the block of offices reserved for the executive committee, behind the walls of the Presidium.
Wiping the humid air from his brow, Giovanni settled back into the plush faux leather cushion of the rear compartment, breathing in the blessedly cool and dehumidified air. He clutched his brief in his lap, eyes staring out the tinted and CNT-reinforced windows. But his mind wasn’t on the view as the car descended to street level and merged efficiently with the city’s traffic.
I never wanted this. I didn’t ask to be born into this station. Stars! he thought morosely, I’m not even certain I buy the party line that ‘AIs threaten human supremacy’ in the galaxy.
Giovanni had been just a child when the first colony ship bound for Epsilon Eridani was commissioned. The chief information officer for EpiGen had been instrumental in the colony’s transition from corporate organization to Barat’s governmental structure. The woman had successfully parlayed her role as CIO into that of the Office of Safety and Information, and had appointed herself as the first Council member to hold the position.
What remained unspoken as Giovanni had grown was the fact that his mother, Julia Perelman, fully intended to be the first of many Perelmans to hold that position after she retired, thus guaranteeing the furtherance of her own lineage, her own ambitions.
Julia—indeed, all of the senior executives of EpiGen—believed that the scientists back in Sol would soon reach an AI singularity, and it was just a matter of time before artificial intelligence became reality. EpiGen’s mission statement was the advancement of humankind, and they perceived AIs as a threat to the dominance of humans as a species.
The colony was meant to ensure humanity’s preeminence in the galaxy. It had been a major blow to the endeavor when the company overextended itself and lost its bid for the second planet.
But AIs have been around for hundreds of years now, he mused, and, except for the Solar Wars—where many AIs fought in defense of humans—they’ve been no threat to us.
In fact, if information from neighboring syst
ems was to be believed, AIs not only lived in peaceful coexistence with humans, but their partnerships had been beneficial, and both sides had thrived.
Even on Godel, his agents’ reports indicated much the same—if one read between the lines. He very carefully refrained from mentioning these observations whenever he had occasion to visit his mother, or any of her cronies….
Giovanni’s thoughts returned to the treason he’d committed mere hours ago.
No one suspects. Just behave normally, he reminded himself sternly, resisting the urge to check once more that his security taps had not been traced. Besides, what has been done cannot be undone.
Through the front windscreen, Giovanni could see the Presidium growing larger as the car approached. The gleaming, rounded edifice stood in stark relief, framed by regimented rows of buildings along their avenue of approach.
To each side of him stood crisp, sharp-edged structures, tinted in what had once been EpiGen’s brand colors but were now referred to as the premier’s colors. Each edifice had before it a prescribed amount of landscaping. The greenspace exactly gave back to its surroundings the amount offset by the building itself, so that the structure remained environmentally neutral.
In theory, it made sense. In practice, it held an unimaginative rigidity that seemed to suck both life and creativity from the soul.
The Presidium was the single exception to that. There were no sharp angles here, none at all. From above, its curved façade appeared as the pupil of a giant, unblinking, all-seeing eye. The mental comparison sent an uncomfortable ripple through Giovanni, just as the car descended into its subterranean depths. Here, the first of many security tokens would be exchanged before he would be permitted entrance to his own offices.
Just as the car’s interior passed from daylight into night, a flashing icon appeared on his HUD, an updated timetable for the ship’s arrival from Phaethon. With it came an information update that the prisoner would be transferred directly to Gehenna.
He grimaced mentally at the unnecessary waste. Had Jones not interfered, he was certain his people could have managed an equitable trade of the Centauri captain for their stasis tech.
It did not occur to him to regret the unnecessary harm brought to a fellow being. He was, after all, from Barat.
* * * * *
Hundreds of kilometers away near the equator, a Barat shuttle fought its way through severe turbulence and near-zero visibility to land at Gehenna. Gusts buffeted the craft, and a microburst of wind shear momentarily overpowered the craft, bringing it down with a hard thump. The craft’s maneuvering thrusters kicked up clouds of dust that rose, billowing, on either side of the vessel, but the contribution was barely noticed for the dust storm raging outside.
The hatch opened and Calista was prodded forward into a maelstrom. Fine particles of dust and sand beat at her exposed face and neck with a million tiny stings. The biofilters in her lungs no longer functioned, so she used the front of her prison coveralls to cover her mouth and nose. Behind her, the shuttle’s thrusters roared, and the craft took off moments after disgorging its single passenger.
Dirt and sand were everywhere. She could feel it coating her eyelashes when she squinted against the diffuse glare of sun that broke through the tempest now and again. She could taste grit between her teeth as she clenched them in her determination to remain upright, despite the wind that battered at her mercilessly.
An arm appeared from out of the dust, waving her forward. Then, impatience winning, its owner grabbed her roughly by the arm and herded her toward the nearest building.
“Stupid noob,” the voice grunted as they entered, “outside’s no place to be when a dust storm’s starting.”
The person disappeared, leaving her standing inside the prefab structure, blinking the grit from her eyes as her single working one registered the presence of others in the room.
Interesting form of due process they have here, she mused with a bitter edge, as she took in the roomful of men and women garbed in the same prison coveralls she wore. Welcome to Barat, enjoy your stay in hell.
“Better get used to the weather on Gehenna if you expect to survive the dry season,” a gruff voice sounded on her blind side, and she turned toward it.
A crusty woman with weathered skin and sun-bleached, shorn hair approached. She circled Calista once, eyes sharp and assessing, then came to a stop in front of her.
“You’re not Baratian, then,” the woman mused, and Calista wondered what about her appearance had given her away. The woman motioned to her dead eye. “You have—had—mods,” she explained, then gestured around her at the others.
Calista followed the movement, studying the room before returning her attention to the woman before her, one brow raised in question.
“No one on Barat gets mods unless they’re former Citizen Guard,” the woman explained. “And, although we do get the occasional political prisoner, they’d just as soon shoot a soldier.”
Calista nodded, returning her gaze to those inhabiting the dusty space. “All human?”
The woman barked a short laugh and then spit to one side. “Any AI foolish enough to be caught on Barat gets terminated. If they made it here,” she added, a malicious gleam in her eye, “we’d do the same.” She laughed once more at the shocked expression on Calista’s face. “Just because I’m a prisoner doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” she said, derision in her tone. “Everyone knows those machines will end up destroying us if we don’t destroy them first.”
Calista merely nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself until she had a better feel for the place.
“You a spy, or military?” Another voice asked, this one from a gaunt, unshaven man, his coveralls hacked off at the knees in deference to the stifling heat.
“Military’s my guess,” another hazarded. “Lookit the way she’s standing, even all beat-up like that.”
The man coughed, then spat. His eyes narrowed as he assessed her. “Huh. You think the Citizen Guard finally grew a pair and went after that second planet of ours? The one we ordered terraformed and the AI-loving bastards stole out from under us?”
History of Barat in one easy lesson, Calista thought sardonically, keeping her mouth shut and watching the interplay.
She shifted slightly, standing hipshot to take the stress off her weaker leg as she unconsciously cradled her broken arm.
Wonder what else I can learn if I just keep my mouth shut.
She grimaced as she tasted the fine grains of sand that had worked their way between her teeth, and glanced around for a source of water.
No need to brush my teeth while I’m here; I can just have them sandblasted clean.
The blonde woman must have noticed. She pulled out a battered canteen, removed its lid and proffered it. “Take a swig, swish, and spit,” she instructed, pointing to the floor. “Not as we’d notice much anyways. It’s not like you’re going to track any more dirt in here than the diablo blows in.”
Calista took it and did as instructed, then handed the canteen back. The woman nodded to the kit Calista had slung over her shoulder, a pack the prison guard had thrust at her as she exited, but that she had forgotten about in the interval following her arrival.
“You have one of your own in there, along with a few other survival necessities.” The woman lifted the lid she held in her hand, waggling it at Calista to get her attention. “Top’s a water extraction and purification cone, so be careful not to damage it. Not a lot of water around here otherwise.”
Doesn’t look like there’s much of anything around here, Calista thought privately, except for heat, humidity, and dust.
* * * * *
Giovanni sat before his secured office holoscreen and regarded the icon hovering on his HUD as if it were a viper, coiled to strike. Its color pulsed a red-gold warning at him, indicating it had been tampered with.
He didn’t need to open the data packet to know what it contained; the ident associated with it was enough to tell him that he’d been compromised
. Someone else knew he’d leaked Barat’s planned attack on the farms and food storehouses to Godel.
A noise alerted him to the presence of others, individuals who’d managed to bypass his office’s security. As he turned to the entrance, the Republican guard who usually stood sentry outside his office approached, his hand on his weapon.
“You are wanted outside, citizen,” the young man informed him, face expressionless.
No cordial deference to his title, as the soldier had always given. Not even a drawn weapon, as if the concept of Giovanni being a threat was ludicrous.
Giovanni stood, bile rising in his throat, and mechanically reached for his uniform jacket. As he did so, he saw the soldier tense; he raised his hands to show he was weaponless.
Then an individual who had been standing in the shadows behind the soldier stepped forward.
The premier’s citizen general.
“I wouldn’t bother with that, if I were you,” Jones advised with a humorless smile. “You won’t need that where you’re going.” The look she gave him spoke volumes.
Oh yes, Citizen General Jones knew what he’d done; not only had she toppled him from his aerie, now she’d caught him leaking information.
He could see it in her eyes. There would be no mercy from that front.
* * * * *
Three hours later, Giovanni stumbled out of the prison shuttle, his hand shading his eyes from the relentless sun that beat down upon the Gehenna equatorial region. The small kit slung over his shoulder contained the bare minimum he would need to survive, but at least the prison coveralls he wore were made of wear-resistant, moisture-wicking nanomaterial.
Thank the stars for small favors, he thought humorlessly as he wiped the beads of sweat already forming on his forehead and upper lip. He rather suspected the prison garb had more to do with convenience than the prisoners’ comfort. It would be an annoyance—and an unnecessary expense—to have to supply changes of clothing for people who the Republic considered expendable.