Global Warming Fun 6: Ice Giants Make Manhattan

by Gary J. Davies

CHAPTER 10

  Aliens, Stone-Coats, and Jants

  Established in 1847, The City College of New York was the oldest CUNY college. Located in northernmost Manhattan, CCNY was attended by students from all over the City, including from nearby Bronx neighborhoods to the north and east of it.

  It was already designated by the Stone-Coats to be a valuable human historical area to be preserved despite nearby rising water levels. Dozens of Stone-Coats including several gigantic Ice Giants visibly labored about the campus, strengthening existing buildings. Under their huge feet and unseen by humans, hundreds of stationary Stone-Coats were quietly growing in the bedrock underneath them. Carbon Nano tube networks transported the requisite elements for Stone-Coats into inert rock and brought the rock to life, then brought to it more and more minerals to support rock growth.

  Over the last year the campus area had been risen over an inch by the Stone-Coats. That rate would have to be increased to roughly six inches a year to keep pace with the average projected change in future ocean levels, but the Stone-Coats already assessed this test case at CCNY to be a success. City-wide and world-wide, other similar projects were being started. The CCNY project itself would be expanded south to include Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History. The technique would only rarely be used nationwide or worldwide, however; it was much easier to rebuild cities inland than it was to raise them intact two hundred feet, or to otherwise protect them with impossibly high levies.

  The visitors got a first-hand look at the absurd amount of effort required to raise up the campus. Every five acres required a garage-sized stationary Stone-Coat bin-containing structure where incoming dump-trucks carrying rock from up-state could be dumped, along with ground-up trash mined from area landfills, and nuclear waste from area power-plants. The delivered rock provided the robust minerals that the Stone-Coats were using to raise bedrock levels. The recycled trash provided the diverse diet of elements needed by the Stone-Coats to grow, including carbon to grow trillions of Nano tubes required at each bin to move the trucked-in rock material to a hundred feet below-ground-level, then spread it through the bedrock growth layer that was uniformly raising the entire campus area.

  Underground nuclear waste powered the efforts of the Stone-Coats. Dozens of human engineers monitored the Stone-Coat efforts, while paying special attention to the radioactive materials. The Stone-Coats were confident that they could control the concentrations of radioactive materials needed to power the project, restricting them to remain far below the surface where the vulnerable humans lived, but the humans weren't quite as sure. It was important for humans to gain confidence in what the Stone-Coats were doing at CCNY so that they would support even larger City and world-wide efforts.

  As immense and ambitious as the CCNY trial effort was, an effort hundreds of times larger was already beginning, an effort designed to save sizable sections of the entire City. Even with Stone-Coats doing most of the work, it didn't seem possible, but thousands of new stationary Stone-Coats were being born now that were united by the shared plan to rebuild and save the City.

  Most raw sewerage generated by the City was already being intercepted by massive nets of Stone-Coat Nano tubes. For the next ten years they would be establishing huge Nano tube pads throughout the bedrock under the areas that had been selected to be saved, including Midtown, the financial district to the south, and a string of islands that would lead north to New York high-grounds, west to remaining Jersey highlands, and east to hills that would become a string of small islands: all that would someday remain of Long Island. When that infrastructure was complete, as they were already doing under CCNY, the selected areas would begin to rise and keep pace with the rising sea level. For the first time in the City's history, net trash flow would soon be into the City instead of out of it.

  Meanwhile an equally huge effort would be necessary to gradually rebuild the City itself as most of it sank under the rising ocean. Over the next three centuries low-lying areas destined to be flooded would be condemned, demolished, and recycled into new construction. Meanwhile transportation and utility infrastructure would need to continually adapt to the half-foot a year rise in City level. They would have to stay safely ahead of the ocean rise, which was likely to be somewhat erratic as huge blocks of ice broke from Antarctica.

  In the end the old City would be mostly gone, and a new New York City would tower proudly and defiantly in its place: a new city of both new and old but renewed buildings, bridges, and canals, with Stone-Coat re-built Manhattan as its towering centerpiece. Over most of the world each new generation of humans would have to retreat inland, as was already being done in low-lying places such as New Orleans, Venice, England, the Netherlands, and Bangladesh. But future generations of many New Yorkers would stand fast.

  As Ed, Mary, and Driscal were being seated in the front row of the CCNY auditorium, they made their usual inquiries and observations in order to vet the audience of more than two hundred individuals. They were pleased indeed to notice first that in the row immediately behind them sat the various lead CUNY Omega project individuals that had been their hosts for earlier CUNY visits, a discovery that led to a round of warm greetings and hand-shakes.

  There were also researchers from neighboring schools in attendance: from Columbia University in particular but also from Yeshiva University and from Barnard, Mount Saint Vincent, Manhattan, and Lehmann Colleges.

  "HELLO ED," someone a few rows back announced his presence silently with a very strong telepathic message. Ed looked up and was astonished to recognize Jerry Green himself sitting quietly in the audience! Bearded, middle aged, and informally dressed, the small man still looked exactly the same as he had looked six and a half decades earlier, when they were next-door neighbors in Virginia. How much had changed since then: the world itself had changed, while ageless Ed and Jerry still looked physically the same. Jerry was flanked on each side by a big tough looking man wearing a black suit.

  "WE NEED TO TALK," replied Ed.

  "YES," agreed Jerry. "FOR NOW ALERT NONE TO MY PRESENCE."

  Ed went back to vetting the rest of audience. There were a dozen zombies, most of them part of the Eastern Consortium, and several 'small' two-ton Stone-Coats. Most in the audience were pure humans with little or no telepathic ability, and couldn't be fully assessed by Ed.

  "ALL AUDIENCE MEMBERS CHECK-OUT OK ID-WISE," pathed Mary, "INCLUDING OUR SURPRISE VIP FRIEND THAT YOU'VE JUST EXCHANGED THOUGHTS WITH. I NOTICE THAT A DOZEN IN THE AUDIENCE ARE ARMED FEDS AND THERE ARE TWICE THAT MANY NYPD."

  "WE'RE READY," pathed Driscal. "THIS HAS GOT TO BE WHERE EGBORG AND FRIENDS MAKE THEIR MOVE, WHATEVER THAT MIGHT BE. THEN WE'LL HAVE THEM."

  "OR THEY'LL HAVE US," said Ed.

  A report from the Consortium jants came in. The good news was that multiple reports of Tracy and Mouse scent detections were coming in from jant searchers. The bad news was that there were thousands of such reports coming in from all over the City. Most or even all of them had to of course be 'false positive' reports. Given that there were twelve million humans in the City, it wasn't surprising that many thousands of humans smelled/tasted similar to the kidnap victims. The overriding good news was that the thousands of reports were immediately being investigated by thousands of jant colonies, zombies, Tribe searchers, Stone-Coats, and police.

  "Check this out," said Driscal, as he held his hand-held holographic phone for Ed and Mary to hear and see. On the tiny screen were still-3D photos of Tracy and Mouse, and the commentator was identifying them as kidnap victims. Next photos of Ann and Ed were shown, and the commentator was telling about the City-wide search for the kidnap victims by Stone-Coats and jants. "Don't be alarmed by more jant, zombie, and Stone-Coat activity than is usual," said Ann Richards from the screen. "They are looking for my daughter and her little cousin and for the Stone-Coat disassemblers. Please help them, New Yorkers!"

  Ed's jaw dropped. "Ann never even consulted us! I can't believe it! What will the kidnap
pers think?"

  "I think they won't give a shit," said Driscal. "My ex-wife is probably pissed but she's always pissed anyway. The news story was breaking anyway, so why not appeal to the public and enlist up to twelve million pairs of New-Yorker eyes to help with the search? Relax, Rumsfeld, your wife made a very smart move. Probably."

  "But maybe not," said Ed.

  "It was completely logical to go public," consoled Mary. "In any case what's done is done, and here comes our first speaker." She pointed to the smallish, ordinary looking man that was walking to the center of the low stage before them. Ed read no tell-tale telepathic or electronic signals emanating from him: he appeared to be a perfectly ordinary human. Ed had to admit that he rather liked that in a person.

  Driscal's little TV screen was now showing dozens of Ice Giants marching through the streets to a chorus of honking horns that were either celebrating the unscheduled Ice Giant parades or, more likely, protesting the terrible resulting traffic jams.

  "THE BULK OF THE STONE-COAT ARMIES WILL SOON REACH US HERE OR ARRIVE AT THE UN," Driscal noted. "THEN ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOSE, I BET."

  "Welcome Omega participants and guests," announced the little man on the stage. "I'm your host George Warren, the Omega Department Head at CCNY and Head of the over-all CUNY Omega Project. I will lead this discussion by citing observations and posing questions to witnesses. Previous lectures focused on human dangers and natural disasters. This final set of lectures will summarize some of our thoughts on the potential dangers posed by sentient non-humans: specifically by Stone-Coats, jants, and space aliens."

  "SPACE ALIENS? WHAT THE HELL!" Driscal exclaimed silently.

  Warren continued. "To quickly summarize the space alien situation first, human and Stone-Coat thinkers of course concluded long ago that they almost certainly do exist, but it was not sure that they ever visited Earth or ever would, as readily habitable planets are inconveniently generally located many light-years apart. Several alien artifacts discovered in other planets of our solar system have of course proved that aliens do exist and have been visiting us for many centuries. In addition, improvements in our technology have allowed us to discover that they still visit Earth routinely.

  "However all our attempts to communicate with them have been thus far rebuffed. Many in our Group feel that we should continue to try to contact them. Others insist that we avoid doing so, at least until we feel that we have reached closer parity with them in terms of technology. In any case it seems clear that they will not willingly communicate with us until they themselves decide to do so. So for now at least, there is nothing more to say about space aliens."

  Ed and Driscal exchanged slack-jawed expressions of astonishment. Space aliens were real but there was nothing more to say about that? Really? Could Tracy and Mouse have been abducted by space aliens? Was Egborg a space alien?

  "Stone Coats next," announced Warren. "We are all familiar with the enormous benefits to humans provided by Stone-Coats, but any Stone-Coat when asked will honestly state that there are potential dangers to humans. Mary? You have the floor."

  To Ed's surprise, Mary stood and turned towards the audience. "Thank you George, though 'dangers' is hardly the appropriate term. Yes it is true that when asked, any Stone-Coat will truthfully respond to questions with regard to our intent towards humans and other biological life-forms. We are a very ancient and resilient life-form ourselves, compared to the biologics that have evolved over the last four-billion years on Earth.

  "We watched biological life progress to multicellular form 1.5 billion years ago, sex arise 1.2 billion years ago, and intelligence increase in certain biologics over the last few hundred million years. We watched as biological life suffered advances as well as setbacks. We can fairly easily survive things that greatly stress biologics, including asteroid strikes, tectonic-level geological events, and solar radiation fluctuations that stress even the less complex biological life-forms.

  "Were it not for the serious threat posed to biologics by climate change, we would likely comfortably ignore that much heralded event, for as long as the Earth's crust itself endures we stone creatures have a safe home. Most of us abide contentedly deep within the Earth's crust. We should be safe for billions of years, long after biological life has been extinguished, possibly until the expanding Sun engulfs the Earth roughly five billion years from now.

  "However recently the more complex biological life forms have become of interest to us. For millions of years some of us imitated biological forms of life and made ourselves into what you now call Ice Giants, so that we could efficiently harvest and carry trees to where they could be easily consumed by us for their carbon and other useful elements. We found that during periods of glaciation the increased mobility of Ice Giants also allowed us to more effectively spread ourselves throughout all continents. During such excursions we recently encountered successive species of humanoids, and watched as they developed a fledgling sentience of their own. Since the last glacial period we encountered humans more and more as they rose to a position of dominance among biological life-forms. Still there was as yet no over-riding reason for us to establish a relationship with humans.

  "A turning point came roughly a century ago when we began intercepting human electromagnetic means of communications - analog at first, and then digital. We decided to decode the human communications signals, especially when it was noticed that some signals surprisingly used Earth-orbiting satellites. The languages used by humans were rich with ambiguity, obscure arbitrary history, and symbolism, and very difficult to translate to our own. But humans were clearly becoming more interesting, possibly even dangerous, as they clearly developed powerful weapons and illogically displayed extreme violence towards each other.

  "When the Mohawk began to access us directly we decided to respond. The rest is shared history. We began to study each other in earnest and learned to live together. A mutually beneficial pact was formed whereby humans supplied Stone-Coat needed elements and Stone-Coats provided shelters and other constructs needed by humans."

  "I will mention several other seminal events before turning more directly towards the question raised here. First, it was decided to fully engage intellectually with humans, particularly with regard to common areas of interest such as science. We feel that such interaction with humans has been by far the most valuable result of our relationship. Second, it was decided that to better understand humans, some of us would internalize the thought patterns and memories of carefully selected individual humans. Mary Rumsfeld was the first of a dozen such humans. Third, it was decided to similarly engage with the new raising sentient biological species, the jants. Forth, it should be acknowledged that all of us share great interest in the human-led Space Program, as it may provide a means of our survival beyond what is possible on Earth."

  "With that already well-known background can we return to the question?" asked Warren.

  "Certainly," said Mary. "It is only logical that we of course constantly reassess, adjust, and reaffirm our relationship with humans and with jants, and we expect them to do the same. Currently we assess our relationships to be highly beneficial to all three parties and do not anticipate that view to change in the foreseeable future. We see human survival to be to our benefit. We therefore appreciate and participate in UN efforts to maintain peace and order among humans, Stone-Coats, and jants."

  "Yet sometimes you take unilateral actions such as your destruction of human nuclear weapons," said Warren.

  "Certainly," said Mary. "Not to do so would be irresponsible. We act responsibly on your behalf and ours."

  "All Stone-Coats hold these views?" asked Warren.

  "Yes. Though we are independent individuals we are all logical by design and share common established facts and thus form very similar practical views. Most differences in views among us are fairly trivial."

  "That is logical and sensible," said Warren. "Why do you take the form of individuals instead of a collective super-entity?"


  "Early in our existence we found that multiple operating individuals are in many ways optimal for species survival and therefore preferable. In addition we found that beyond a certain point adding processing power does not enhance intelligence but leads instead to a detrimental loss of coherence and to useless inaction. In sum Stone-Coat evolution reached the conclusion that multiple very smart individuals outperform one super-smart individual. Biological evolution long ago reached that general conclusion also."

  "Yes, others have reached similar conclusions," noted Warren, "though I contend that humans are far from reaching a point of inflection where increased intelligence would not be beneficial to them. Yet even with all your computational powers you Stone-Coats have strangely all come to similar strange conclusions with regard to humans: you have decided to live peacefully and cooperatively with them, despite the fact that they are destructive to the planet that you share with them. And their individual psychologies can be perplexing and dangerous. What about the introduction of human-based templates? Have you not now been intellectually corrupted by humans?"

  "We would use the term 'enriched' rather than 'corrupted'," said Mary. "We choose very carefully the humans we use as our templates. Their thought patterns have greatly enriched our own. The analogy can be made to adding harmonics and so-forth in musical instruments: the purist note or tone is not the richest. We similarly value a diversity of life-forms and thought patterns. We enjoy encountering a variety of thought patterns and lifeforms, perhaps much as humans enjoy art."

  "So you say. But you do at least admit that your friendly relationship with humans is provisional," insisted Warren.

  "As are all relationships between rational independent parties," said Mary.

  "And I believe that the provisional nature holds for jants also," said Warren. "Professor Aldo?"

  A dowdy looking middle-aged woman introduced as Martha Aldo rose from the second row and made her way towards the podium. Ed noticed right away that she was a zombie, but unlike Egborg she used the common jant internal language.

  "DID WARREN SEEM STRANGELY CONFRONTATIONAL TO YOU?" Ed asked Mary. "IT SEEMED TO ME THAT HE WAS FISHING ABOUT IN ORDER TO REVEAL ANTAGONISMS BETWEEN STONE-COATS AND HUMANS."

  "SUCH QUESTIONING HAS BEEN A PRIMARY TACTIC FOR HUMAN DISCOURSE SINCE EVEN BEFORE SOCRATES AND PLATO," noted Mary. "BUT NOTE THAT HE ALSO SOMETIMES REFERRED TO HUMANS AS IF HE IS NOT A HUMAN HIMSELF."

  Warren stepped to one side as Professor Martha Aldo joined him at the podium, but strangely he did not further withdraw. Ed had already made acquaintance with Aldo's Consortium jant colony. The school housed dozens of jant colonies, many of them within the auditorium building. Ed noticed that several Consortium colonies were positioning their worker ants under the very stage itself. "I will make some remarks with regard to the relationship between jants and humans and Stone-Coats," Aldo began.

  "But do you claim to speak for all jants?" asked Warren. Though standing away from the podium microphone that was now in front of Aldo, his voice was still somehow picked up and magnified, Ed noticed. "I believe that some background on that question would be helpful. How do jants collectively form their opinions?"

  "Very well," said Aldo. "After being endowed by our human Creator with certain cognitive and telepathic abilities we quickly found that in exercising them we quite naturally formed our clearest thoughts at a hive level. Our initial hive-level thought was the result of the telepathic interconnection of all jant minds existing at the time. We soon learned that although our wired-in ant chemistry-driven behaviors continued to drive most individual actions needed for our survival, our continued existence depended on our exercise of well thought out hive-level relationships and actions. However the burden of our collective sentience was huge. Our food requirements became roughly twice as great per mass unit as that of our immediate ant ancestors. That high cost of course explains why high intelligence is rare among biological life forms.

  "Like humans, we have had to remake our surrounding ecosystem to survive and thrive. For decades we have spread throughout and eventually dominated the insect world, bringing to ruthless extinction many rival species of ants, beetles, and others. Humans of course long ago exterminated their close rivals in a very similar way.

  "Meanwhile our relationship with our human creators evolved. In many environments we found human cooperation to be essential to our survival. Deserts and arctic zones for example are too hostile to our normal modes of existence. It was soon found that human artificial habitats by contrast could provide suitable habitats for jants. We began living in and underneath human buildings. In addition we noted that humans through mechanized agriculture had established the means to produce the massive quantities food that we needed.

  Though early on we had contemplated completely replacing humans with ourselves, we realized that our own limitations and needs instead drove us to gaining a partnership with humans, though domination over them remains another possibility. But we needed to address a critical question: how could we win human acceptance and cooperation?

  "The answer came with our creative bio-engineering of the med-tick. They provide the medical laboratory and linkage to the host, while we prove the brain-power to cure disease. By curing humans of cancer and many other diseases we gained human cooperation. We now consume ten-percent of human food production, and live in millions of human buildings. We even significantly prolong the useful lives of several million humans by preserving them as zombies.

  "Like Stone-Coats, we participate in human science and technology efforts: notably biology and the Space Program. In return we anticipate the proliferation of our species to far-off planetary systems. Along with our human and Stone-Coat friends of course." As Martha said this, her gaze rested squarely on Jerry Green, Ed noticed. He did not appear to be surprised. The Consortium of course knew of his presence.

  "Yes, we will get to the topic of the Space Program very shortly," said Warren. "Is this the view of all jants or only that of the Eastern Consortium? And why are there multiple jant consortiums world-wide?"

  "Starting out more than six decades ago with only a few thousand colonies one collective consortium of all hive minds was physically awkward but possible. But as the number of colonies increased still further, one consortium soon became impractical. Usually of course we think and need to act on an individual hive level to begin with. We also found that we are physically limited to the joint collective thought of only a few thousand hives at a time. We can alternate groupings to expand that number but true collective thought becomes prohibitively awkward."

  "That seems like a very severe jant weakness," noted Warren. "You are necessarily divided."

  "Regional challenges differ across the globe, and division came naturally," said Aldo. "World-wide there are now over a dozen super consortiums and twice that many smaller ones. Ours is the oldest and largest super consortium and the others usually follow our lead on major planetary-level issues."

  "Only usually?" said Warren mockingly. "And what of rogue colonies and zombies? Aren't jant thoughts and actions tainted by rogue internal anarchy and their human associations?"

  "The non-affiliated rogue colonies are less than ten percent of the total," said Aldo. "Jant thought usually dominates in zombies. Over-all we are influenced but not 'tainted' by humans. Those rogues or zombies that become too dangerous are destroyed. Our net human associations are generally beneficial and necessary, or we would of course not establish them."

  "But as you already mentioned, haven't you also seriously contemplated the complete elimination of humans?" Warren asked, bringing gasps from the mostly human audience.

  "Certainly, just as humans have doubtlessly considered jant elimination," Aldo replied. "Like humans and Stone-Coats we consider all potential strategies for our survival. Decades ago we did seriously consider the possible elimination of humans. But we have since become so mutually dependent that elimination of humans would be detrimental to our own survival. Additionally our S
tone-Coat friends would certainly object to human elimination. And like them, we see great species survival value in the human-led Space Program."

  "Ha!" said Warren. "Again the Space Program! Like the Stone-Coats you accept humans largely because of the Space Program! The Space Program publicly says that its goal is to take humans, Stone-Coats, and jants to the stars. But what if that is a big lie! What if secretly Stone-Coats and jants are to be excluded by humans from traveling to distant colony planets?"

  Warren turned his gaze to Jerry Green. "And we have with us today the founder and leader of that Space Program to abandon Stone-Coats and jants on a doomed Earth, the mysterious Jerry Green himself! What do you say, Mr. Green?"

  Jerry Green stood his full five-foot six and smiled. "You are in many respects correct, Warren. A long secret part of our Space Program has been to establish plans for a new human-only home-world, devoid of both Stone-Coats and jants. I suppose that by openly revealing that fact your plan was to weaken human, Stone-Coat, and jant alliances?"

  "Yes," said Warren. "Divided you will all fall. Over the last few seconds Stone-Coats and jants world-wide have been alerted to your treachery! You are all fools: humans, Stone-Coats, and jants. None of you deserve this or any other planet. You are all stupid and weak. Look how easy it was for me to lure you here to your death, Green! Think of the chaos that will reign with your death and the destruction of the UN and the alliances that you and the Rumsfelds have helped to build!"

  "I had the UN shut down and most of its ambassadors evacuated from the UN facility," said Green. "Nor did the Stone-Coat -strengthened UN building collapse from your bomb."

  "Minor setbacks," said Warren. "We have decided to still destroy the UN facility. We will still tear UN buildings down to the ground to demonstrate the UN weakness and vulnerability."

  Ed was feeling very vulnerable and uncomfortable to be sitting in the front row only ten feet from the podium, as Professor Warren had clearly just revealed himself to be one of the kidnappers/terrorists. He thought to warn Aldo but wisely she was already edging away from the podium and Warren. Did the man carry a weapon? Would he blow himself up?

  "Have you not considered the possibility that it is I that has lured you here?" said Green. "Your arrogance is your greatest weakness, Warren. Or would you prefer that I address you as X-341? Or Egborg?"

  Those in attendance watched in amazement as over the next few seconds George Warren's face thinned and contorted into that of grinning Egborg! Shocked exclamations ensued as Driscal and three dozen other police in the room immediately drew their weapons and pointed them at Warren/Egborg!

  "Wow!" exclaimed Driscal. "I didn't see that one coming! What's X-341?"

  "A sentient robot that went rogue and escaped from the Space Program a decade ago," said Green. "At some point in the recent past he replaced the human George Warren."

  "Robots? It's been robots all along?" said Driscal.

  "Idiot!" said Egborg. "Surely you must have already concluded that from our lectures! Humans, Stone-Coats, and jants are hopelessly doomed and only robots will survive!"

  "Where are my daughter and her cousin?" Ed demanded.

  "Soon dead," said Egborg, "along with everyone here. My forces are converging here at this campus and at the UN. After this place and the UN are demolished my Stone-Coat disguised robots will all kill a few hundred thousand local humans around the city before escaping. Stone-Coats will of course be blamed for the deaths and destruction. I've already started spreading false news reports to that effect. And this is just the beginning of the chaos and death I plan to cause across the world! When you have weakened yourselves enough those that remain will be exterminated by my growing robot forces. The blight upon this planet that is humanity will finally be gone!"

  "You are under arrest," said Driscal, "though as a robot I suppose you have no civil rights that require the formality of an arrest."

  "Really, Detective? Perhaps I haven't quite mastered understanding of the human sense of humor that you apparently now express," said Egborg. "Is that a joke or are you simply saying that you want to die right now?"

  "You are outnumbered here," said Driscal, as he glanced around the room. Three dozen guns were pointed at Egborg: rifles, handguns, and electrical shocking devices. Police with their guns drawn stood at every exit doorway and a dozen were edging towards the podium where Egborg still calmly stood. A half dozen Stone-Coats also moved towards him with their eyes glowing extra red.

  "HE COULD BE CARRYING A BOMB OR POISONED GAS," said Mary, in all the message forms she could muster.

  "Let's not be in any rush," said Ed. "There are some things I'd like to know. For instance why all this theatre? And why the kidnapping?"

  "This entire experiment has been first and foremost a test and information gathering exercise," said Egborg. "I tested the overrated fighting abilities of Stone-Coats. I tested human and Consortium responses to provocation. As expected I have confirmed that over-all you are all weak and vulnerable. And of course as I already pointed out, your deaths will be useful. Even more useful will be the many thousands of deaths I will bring to the people of New York City that will trigger hostilities world-wide between humans and Stone-Coats. And of course we continue to gather and analyze your communications and thought patterns. We record it all: jant, Stone-Coat and human chatter and tactics. How easy it was to then disguise ourselves and hide among you!"

  "And of course we in turn collect and analyze everything about you," said Mary.

  "But why not free my girls now?" said Ed. "You don't need them anymore!"

  "True," said Egborg. "They are an unneeded complication." He paused and seconds later there was a slight trembling of the ground. "There! At my command they are gone."

  "Warehouse explosion in Long Island City Queens," announced a police sergeant, even as a thunderous distant noise again shook the building. "A whole city block was leveled."

  "Not even their remains will be found," said Egborg. "I set the explosives myself. What you just felt and heard were the two hundred pounds of explosives surrounding the little room where they were imprisoned."

  It was like a hammer blow to Ed. They were dead! Tracy! His daughter Tracy! And little Mouse!

  Amid the ensuing chaos it was not clear who fired the first shot.

  ****