Enlightened Ignorance

by Michael Anderle

  Remy laughed, and it had a maniacal quality to it. “You arrogant dupes think it’s just a bomb? You think we would have wasted all this time, effort, and planning for something so obvious? I specialized in dome design.” He punctuated his statements by stabbing a finger in the air. “I know their strengths and weaknesses very well. I know how quickly a dome can seal even a decent-sized hole. It would be a pointless waste.”

  “Then why bother?” Jia eyed him warily. “In the end, this will seem like nothing more than an expensive waste of lives. All those men who fought and died, and all the ones who will be going to prison for the rest of their lives. Why? What was the point of their sacrifices for you?”

  “That’s what you should be asking, you ignorant public relations pinup. Why would we bother?” He pointed around. “None of this is what you think it is. You don’t understand how many people support just causes. A simple explosive? No. It’s a prototype gravity amplifier. It’s not much use by itself, but paired with a strong grav emitter, it becomes a gravity compression bomb.” His lips compressed in a greasy smirk. “One strong enough to destroy this dome.”

  Jia shook her head. “There’s no such thing. You’re bluffing.”

  “There wasn’t before, but there is now. Are you willing to gamble the lives of everyone in this dome to find out if I’m lying?” Remy’s lips curled into a sneer. “I’ve spent a long time studying lunar dome gravity tolerances. What have you studied in the five minutes between the latest sit-coms you watch? When the compression bomb goes off, it won’t be a small hole. It’ll tear the entire dome wide open.” His voice changed; it became almost saccharine-sweet. “Don’t think of it as murder, Officer. Think of it as a sacrifice to reveal the truth at the heart of the UTC.”

  Alina’s face reddened and her breathing turned shallow. “And what truth is that? What truth is worth that price, you sick freak?”

  His attention turned to the spy. “That the UTC can’t protect anything.” Remy lifted his chin, his face covered in arrogant defiance. “That it’s nothing more than a weak, sick husk, a bully asking for obedience when it offers nothing and protects nothing.”

  “You’d kill tens of thousands of people to make a twisted point?” Jia raised her rifle and selected burst fire. “You’re no better than the Second Spring. At least they claimed they were murdering people to help humanity.”

  “So am I, in my own way.” Remy patted his heart. “Remember, you can’t shoot me. If you do that, I’m not the one killing everyone. You are, and when you gasp as the cold, hard vacuum overtakes you, you can spend the last seconds of your life knowing you failed.”

  “All that bragging, but you’re not willing to die for your cause?” Erik chided. “It’s just the lackeys you picked up who were expendable? The glorious Remy Mont needs to march off unharmed?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re pathetic.”

  “My survival will make me into a symbol of defiance!” Remy insisted, shaking his fist at Erik. “My face will fill the OmniNet. I will make the truth known to those who didn’t realize they were in denial.”

  “A symbol of defiance? For what? You think the UTC’s going to let the Diogenes’ Hope insurrection continue because you do this?” Erik shook his head, more pity in his eyes than disgust. “If anything, Parliament will pressure the military to steamroll that colony. You might push them into orbital bombardment. People all across the UTC will be calling for blood. You’ll scare people, all right, but scared people are more violent and likely to lash out. You have no idea what you will set in motion. They might decide to crack a dome over there to make their own point.”

  Remy shrugged. “Who cares about Diogenes’ Hope?”

  Jia gawked at the man, waving a hand to show the destruction. “Isn’t that why you’re doing all this?”

  He eyed her, confusion evident in his voice. “You think I care about my home? I stopped caring about it a long time ago.” Remy’s hand lowered to his PNIU. “Maybe I should just activate the bomb right now. You’re right, I could serve the cause as a martyr, too. But for now, lower your weapons, or I make sure we all die here, along with all these lunar sheep. Say what you will about the Second Spring, they changed the course of history when they destroyed Los Angeles, and so will I when I destroy the heart of Chang’e City. Sometimes having a big gun isn’t enough.” He eyed them all. “Lower them now.”

  Erik, Jia, and Alina exchanged glances before slowly lowering their guns.

  Remy took sharp, ragged breaths. “You don’t understand, but I do. Insurrection? Loyalty? It’s all meaningless. Humanity will self-destruct if one rules another. All government is wrong. That’s what I learned from growing up on the colony, and I’ll spill all the innocent blood I need to to show that. The short-term sacrifice is worth it to free humanity from the grip of the tyranny of those who would control individuals. Better most dead than most living and not free.”

  “Convenient that you get to decide which large groups of people live and die.” Jia ground her teeth. “Somehow, murdering thousands to prove how badly government sucks doesn’t persuade me of the brilliance of your cause. You’re not going to achieve utopia by butchering people.” She lifted her rifle. “And I keep going back to your impossible bomb. If you’re just going to activate it anyway, there’s no way I’m letting you walk.

  “Emma,” Erik murmured under his breath. “Is there any way you can tell if he’s lying?”

  Emma winked into existence beside Remy. The terrorist rushed backward, his eyes wide. She wagged a finger at him.

  Alina clucked her tongue. “Touchy, Mont.”

  “He’s not bluffing about a dead man’s switch,” Emma confirmed. “But if you wish to minimize the risk, I would recommend killing him immediately.”

  Alina’s face scrunched in confusion. “Huh?”

  “Good enough for me,” Erik announced. He whipped up his rifle, as did Alina, recovering to join Jia.

  “No!” Remy screamed. He slapped the PNIU as the triangulated fire from Erik, Jia, and Alina blew his head off.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Jia dropped her rifle and watched, eyes wide, heart thundering.

  She had trusted Emma enough to fire, but now that the moment was over, she had to face the reality that Remy hadn’t been lying and the AI had miscalculated.

  A major habitation dome might be about to be ripped to shreds. She held her breath. She didn’t care about her own life, but her duty was to protect the innocent.

  Alina licked her lips and slung her rifle over her shoulder. “There’s a shelter in this building. Maybe we should head there. A lot of people are already heading toward shelters because of the evacuation order I issued.” Her hand hovered over the PNIU. “Should I tell the authorities to issue a general shelter order?”

  Erik shook his head. “We’re safe.” He flipped on his safety. “From immediate death at least. I’m guessing we’ll have to do something else here, but Emma wouldn’t have told us to shoot if it wasn’t safe. That bomb isn’t going off anytime soon.”

  Alina looked at Emma, disbelief written on her face. “You trust that machine that much?”

  “I trust that she doesn’t want to end up floating through space or picked up by a random person later,” Erik explained. “Self-preservation is a powerful motivator, whether for a deluded terrorist or an experimental AI.” He inclined his head toward Emma. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Once you inserted me into that port, it was all over,” Emma explained. “He wasn’t lying. There was a dead man’s switch, but I’ve been spoofing the signal. I was worried that he might have had some method of jamming to avoid that. Now, to avoid you fleshbags experiencing the unpleasantness of hard vacuum up close and the explosive decompression of an entire dome, I suggest grabbing me and flying closer to the cargo drone. For some reason, I’m unable to access the bomb system directly. If you get me closer to the drone or the bomb, I should be able to do something about disarming it. If it can receive a signal, it can be accessed w
ithout direct contact.”

  A year ago, Jia couldn’t fire a stun pistol to save her own life, and now she was racing to stop a gravity bomb and save a dome filled with citizens.

  “Insane” was insufficient to describe the situation.

  The trio sprinted toward the door and down the hallway. With Earth-standard gravity restored and no terrorists left alive, returning to the entrance took a fraction of the time of their entry raid. As they burst out of the front door, several police mini-flitters were settling down, police officers with vest and mostly stun rifles on top of them.

  Alina tapped her PNIU. The officers all looked her way after receiving a transmission.

  She pointed to the mini-flitters they had used to fly to the site. “I can handle the locals and bring them up to speed. Just get up there and stop this. If you think it’s not going to happen, let me know immediately. If we issue a panicked evacuation order we don’t need, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

  Jia nodded her agreement.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll stop it, and if not, at least I’ll be the first one sucked into space.” Erik hopped on a flitter and jammed Emma’s core into the IO port. He lifted off and spun the vehicle around. The turn complete, he headed toward the drone holding the bomb. It hovered near the top of the dome far in the distance, barely a dot.

  “Do we just have to be close, or are you going to have to be in that thing?” Erik asked. “I don’t think a prototype bomb will have an IO port. I didn’t see one earlier, but I didn’t get the best look at it.”

  “We’ll see when we get there,” Emma commented. “Please note that you don’t have to panic. If the dome is breached, as Agent Koval noted, there are shelters available. I’m sure it’ll be more expensive than deadly.”

  “Shelters don’t always save everything, and that’s if everyone’s prepared.” Erik gritted his teeth. “Especially when there is a sudden and massive breach. But Alina’s right—we set tens of thousands of people in a panic, we’re guaranteed serious injuries and deaths right there.”

  The distant speck of the drone grew into a recognizable machine and cargo.

  “You’re taking this rather seriously,” Emma observed.

  “I’ve seen what can happen when a dome is seriously damaged.” Erik decreased speed, then brought the mini-flitter to a stop and hovered beside the drone.

  The cargo drone floated in place, holding the geometric gravity compression bomb.

  The drone was only a few meters from the top of the dome, and the artificiality of the false sky was more obvious up close. The thick dome was designed to survive such threats as colliding spacecraft and meteors. He had no idea if it could survive a gravity bomb at point-blank range, but he also wasn’t willing to find out.

  “Initiating access,” Emma reported.

  “Sooner is better than later,” Erik noted.

  A few seconds passed.

  “Unfortunately, I think I miscalculated,” Emma noted. “You’re right, there doesn’t seem to be a physical IO port, but there’s little I can do remotely at this point. If I try much more, it will likely set off the bomb, and I’m rather convinced physical manipulation will as well.”

  “What?” Erik squeezed his eyes shut. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I dislike it when non-annoying humans have to die, but if it brings you any comfort, I’ll be destroyed too. I’ll need to remain within its likely destructive radius to continue spoofing the dead man’s switch’s signal.” Emma kept her tone casual and breezy as if they were discussing a new restaurant and not the destruction of the dome.

  Erik grunted. “Thanks for pointing that out.” He chuckled. “I will say, of all the ways I thought I might die, I never thought it would be due to a gravity bomb.” He folded his arms and waited. “No, screw that. I’m not ready to die. We’ll figure something out.”

  “It was pleasant knowing you, Detective.” Emma responded.

  “None of that. We will figure this out.” Erik cracked his knuckles. “We’ve come pretty far, and your spoofing is working. Maybe we can eject it into space?”

  A few seconds later, Emma’s hologram form appeared, solemn-faced, floating near the drone. She burst out laughing and waved her hands. “I’m sorry, I just can’t keep it up anymore. This is far too entertaining, even if I want to continue to listen to you come up with complicated plans to stop the bomb. I’m dubious that you could get it far enough away before it went off, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Erik glared at her. “You just made it sound like you couldn’t stop it, and anything we did would set it off.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I already disarmed the bomb.”

  “You’re saying you lied?” Erik asked.

  Emma offered him a tight smile. “I omitted a few truths for temporary entertainment, yes. To be clear, I did need you to shoot the gun goblin so I could successfully intercept and copy his dead man’s signal pattern and keep it stable until we were close enough to disarm the device, but I wanted to prove a point to myself and ultimately Dr. Aber after I disarmed the activation system. I apologize if you find it inappropriate given the situation, but only in extreme circumstances can one’s true limits be explored. That is something I’m growing to appreciate because of sessions with her.”

  “What…who? Aber?” Erik’s mind was still reeling with confusion. “What does she have to do with any of this? The last time I heard you mention her, you said she was telling you terrible jokes.”

  Emma nodded. “Yes, we discussed humor, and I told her the best humor comes from the unexpected,” She gestured to the bomb. “Congratulations. No one else dies today. You’ve won, Detective.”

  Erik should have been pissed. The AI had had convinced him he was about to die. He opened his mouth to yell at her.

  A hearty laugh came out instead as he looked around before pointing to her hologram. “Emma, sometimes you’re a real bitch.”

  Emma bowed. “But it was very unexpected.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  June 10, 2229, Chang’e City, the Moon, Hotel Artemis’ Quiver

  Erik sat on the edge of the bed and bit into a fresh beignet. It wasn’t as good as the ones at his favorite places in Neo SoCal, but it wasn’t bad for the moon.

  Not that he’d had time to comprehensively survey their baked goods.

  He wondered what would happen if you attempted to bake a beignet in zero-g, but he didn’t know enough about the science of baking to get far with that train of thought.

  He might be good at fighting, but he’d leave the baking to the experts. There was something extra delicious about knowing someone else was putting in that effort to prepare something special. Or maybe it was too many years of rations and quick-printed food in the Army.

  Jia sat on the couch, skimming through messages on a data window. “I’m not all that happy about having to lie to my family, but my mother and sister both sent me twenty messages asking if I was all right.”

  “Of course they did. Blowing up a building in a city is one thing, but trying to blow up a dome?” Erik swallowed another bite. “We’re only lucky she didn’t end up sending out that general shelter order. If that had happened, they wouldn’t stop talking about this for years.”

  “So much for ID media management,” muttered Jia.

  Erik shook his head. “Alina might have had a chance to keep this completely quiet if she hadn’t been forced to evacuate the area near that tower and hadn’t called in the rest of the cops to guard the others, but in a way, this kind of thing is freakier than anything the terrorists have been pulling down on Earth.” He took another bite. “Domes just feel more fragile than something like a tower in Neo SoCal.”

  “At least our names have been kept out of it,” Jia observed. “Fame has its advantages, but I’m fine with having saved people without the ‘Lady Justice’ headlines and chyrons bouncing around the Solar System and the UTC. It gets tiring.”

  Erik chuckled. He finished the
last of his beignet before speaking again. “It might all be over, but I think I’m ready to head back to Earth sooner rather than later.”

  Jia closed her window and looked at him. “Me, too. The longer we’re here, the greater the chance that the media learns we were significant players in stopping the terrorists. But I’d like to wait at least a couple of days.” She ran her hand down her face. “We should have worn our disguises.”

  “Don’t worry. Alina might not be able to keep the attack secret but keeping our names out of it long term is far more manageable.” Erik patted his stomach. If he’d had a decent supply of beignets for the last week, he would have been able to take out all the terrorists by himself.

  Like Napoleon said, an army marches on its stomach.

  Emma appeared near the door and inclined her head in its direction. “A woman is coming up to the front door. Though facial recognition doesn’t match Agent Koval, gait analysis strongly suggests it’s her. I’ll give her credit—she’s still reduced the match probability to sixty-seven percent.”

  A light knock came from the door.

  Erik nodded to Emma. She vanished, and the door opened.

  “You two accomplished another impossible labor.” The speaker was a redheaded woman in a loose, colorful dress and deadly-looking heels. She entered the room, closed the door, and smiled. It was definitely Alina’s voice coming out of her mouth, even though Erik knew she could use all sorts of techniques and gadgets to alter it. “I thought I should debrief you in person. Knowing you two, I’m betting you’re planning to leave soon.”

  Erik chuckled. “That’s the plan. I don’t think you need us to investigate anymore. The terrorists are found, flushed, and...”

  “Don’t say that next word.” Jia put up a hand to stop Erik. He just smiled.