“In a manner of speaking, yes, I can communicate with them.” Sarah was at a loss as to how to explain this. A search of her analog indexes didn’t help much. “They are like puppy dogs when they are aware I am observing them.”
“Can you tell them what to do? Can you change their instruction math?” SevD knew Sarah well enough to know the answer. She wouldn’t have generated this plex if she didn’t know how to massage it.
“Yes.”
“I know you have a plan, Sarah. Tell us what you are thinking?” SevD dwelled internally on the way he used the term “thinking” so casually with her now.
“First, you have to tell me how much you want to hurt Keegan and Murcheson. I see them as separate operations.”
The four donkeys looked at one another. Good question.
MorleyD had seemed to age at a tripling rate since DanniD’s death just a day ago. He had been unusually still and disinterested in food or talk, but he spoke up firmly here. “Murcheson should die now.”
AndrzejD nodded his snout, with his mouth still partially full of fresh grass. “MorleyD showed him the sword of Damocles once, and he didn’t learn from the experience. He is a waste of good air and an evil bastard to boot. I agree. He should die an exquisite death.”
“Not Keegan.” LoriD was uncomfortable with the cavalier gaming of this discussion. “He may have hurt Gerald, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
“Did you see the look on his face? He loved the power, and he has grown a coat of cruelty like most mercs.” SevD knew the type from bars and the street in general. He had been a coder for hire, so he ran into them regularly. “He needs to learn how it feels to be helpless while something bad is done to him. And he needs to be declawed forever.”
“All right. Let me test the waters a bit. I need a better idea of where the art of the possible lies around each of them. We can talk again in a couple of hours when you get back to the Sanctuary.” The plex disappeared and Sarah was gone.
It was getting dark and the donkeys started slowly for the compound, MorleyD closer to crippled and LoriD closer to birthing. AndrzejD led the way. “The votaries need to see our faces and our composure after the raid. We need to get back to the normal routine.”
“We need to check on Gerald, too. I hate to think what other herbal remedies Bella has inflicted on him.” SevD shuddered remembering the image of the white viscous nerve hanging from Gerald’s ruined tooth.
When they got back to the compound, they were tired and quiet. No one said much as they went to their stalls to have a drink of cool water and lie down on the clean hay. LoriD wondered how much longer before her baby was born. She was glad that it hadn’t been before today but was now ready. Getting up from the hay nest in the morning was becoming almost impossible. She might have to sleep standing soon. SevD had come into her stall to say goodnight, but she could see his mind was elsewhere as he backed out and went into his stall next door.
SevD was thinking of the world of mercs, a bigger world than most imagined. They were undifferentiated muscle for the firstWorld. They were the way nations and cryptos fought these days—weapon wielders and coders for hire, no questions asked, credits up front. He had looked up Keegan and Rattle as soon as they got back to the Sanctuary. They were right in the sweet spot—mid-sized, around 350 personnel, and well rounded. They professed competence on all fronts, claimed clients of all sizes, but of course offered no documentation of who the clients might actually be. Reviews were good, but again, who wrote them?
Keegan himself was another matter. There was a lot of self-promotion and an image bigger than life as a leader of hard men. SevD thought again, I know him. I’ve known a dozen like him. It’s a career, if you were tough and smart and managed to wash your hands of scruples. He was about fourth in the Rattle command chain, and he did a lot of work for TIC. SevD couldn’t go to sleep. He was thinking about Keegan and how he was chasing a man he didn’t know for money. If Sevier Blume was still alive, he would kill him if he caught him. Would he have caught him? SevD thought no, but he would have made his life one long dodge and diversion for a while. Keegan wouldn’t have cared about that. LoriD didn’t want him killed, but SevD wanted to come close.
He finally fell asleep much later.
They were all up and at the fence to hear the singing at vespers the next morning. Some of the votaries waved to them as they went into the chapel. Soon the music was seeping out of the building—practiced chants that built on themselves rising towards a synthesis of many voices and then dying back to a vibrating hum before ending.
SevD didn’t really listen to Celia’s homily. He was thinking about Keegan again. The young girl votary brought them their wafers, patting noses and scratching ears she greeted each donkey by name and asked if they needed anything. He wondered how she expected them to tell her if they did.
A few minutes after she left the fence line, Gerald walked across the compound and up the slight grade to the pasture’s edge. They crowded around him, and Sarah provided comm so they could ask him how he was. He laughed and smelled like clove, but he moved carefully and couldn’t conceal his pain.
“I’ve never really dealt with mercs before. What kind of person goes around taking that kind of pleasure shooting someone with a stun load? He could have killed you.”
LoriD added that she wished she had arms, so she could hug him, but Gerald lifted his shirt to show her the white form-casting around his chest, saying, “Better save the hug for later. Thanks, though. I don’t know any mercs either, but I’d like to get that captain alone in an ally. I was watching him. He enjoyed having me stunned.”
SevD put his ears back involuntarily. “A hooker in Berlin summed up the world of mercs for me one night, many years ago. She said, ‘Mercs are just like regular people. Some are calm. Some are curious. But most are just vicious assholes.’”
Sarah’s voice was suddenly wafting over them. “So how exactly do we punish him?”
“The person he is looking to kill is or was me, so I have a plan, but it is based on some assumptions about your access to the systems around him, Sarah.”
“I have pretty good access. Let’s hear your plan.” Sarah hesitated for only a moment before adding, “Don’t worry about Murcheson. I know how we should deal with him.”
“Guys like Keegan live at the interface between the first and secondWorld. They manage to live on the privileged firstWorld side of that line by bullying the secondWorld according to the needs or whims of that firstWorld. They are a necessary service to the firstWorld, but they aren’t really trusted or accepted. The secondWorld fears them and gives them wide berth but, caught naked and alone out in the wild, the secondWorld would be a dangerous place for a guy like Keegan.” SevD was looking at MorleyD and AndrzejD as he talked, avoiding LoriD’s eyes. “Remember Sarah’s description of ‘tweaks’?” SevD looked around to make sure they did. “We are going to reorganize Keegan’s life in a few ways that make him look like a threat to his firstWorld patrons. We can let the firstWorld expel him like a bundle of tumor cells. Then he can fend for himself out in the jungle of the secondWorld. We will be completely removed from the action.”
The plex changed colors to light blues and grays, and the nexus POV for Derek Keegan settled into place. By far the largest nearby external node was a gateway node to Rattlesnake Inc. But SevD stopped Sarah from driving further into Keegan at that moment.
“Hold on, Sarah, we need to do some reconnaissance and collection work first. What did you call those algorithms that figure out what data to collect?”
“Those are the scouts, SevD.”
“Okay. We need the scouts to explore the most radical fringes of the secondWorld galaxy, and we want to start with the 7th World Resistance.”
“That is a shadow group that is dedicated to destroying my sister, Serendipity1, SevD.”
“I know that, Sarah. A couple of years a
go I did a bunch of coding for them. It was work-for-hire to pay the bills. They were crazy fucks, but they paid really well. Mostly, they are too ineffectual to be very dangerous, but they put out a lot of propaganda: phony streams, conspiracy fodder, anarchist white papers, all kinds of things to try and incite the secondWorld to ‘overthrow’ the firstWorld.”
LoriD was a little shocked and amused at the same time. “I can’t imagine you working for people like that, SevD. I think of the 7th World as nut jobs.”
“They are for the most part, but like I said, I needed the credits. I will say one thing for them, they weren’t shy about pointing out that the firstWorld had given up on any responsibility for fixing things. They were good at pointing to the rot and deterioration all around. Of course, the 7th Worlders had no real ideas about what to do themselves. They just threw bombs and recommended anarchy. Somehow, a phoenix was supposed to rise out of the polluted debris.”
Sarah felt herself becoming anxious again—anxious to do something concrete with the multiplex creatures she had been playing with. “So, what do you want my little math friends to do with this 7th World Resistance, SevD?” SevD had asked her a lot more about the multiplex programs late the night before.
“First, we want the scouts to identify the ten most virulent storylines within the 7th World universe—ten initiatives the firstWorld really hates or fears.”
The donkeys, followed by Gerald and the ever-present Sarah, had been wandering out into the north pasture as they talked. Now they were arrayed in a semi-circle looking at SevD and Sarah, as plex, who were standing on a hillock of grass with their backs to the compound below.
SevD continued to draw out a blueprint of his plan. “Then we need a controller algorithm to construct a logical history of a secondWorlder’s interactions with each of these story lines. That secondWorlder will be Captain Derek Keegan, closet nihilist. We’ll include all the streams he would have viewed, papers he would have read, and comm traffic he might have generated with other wackos. Am I making sense here, Sarah?”
“Yes, SevD. What you have spelled out so far is doable. Go on.”
“Okay.” SevD looked around at the donkeys to make sure they were following. He could see that Gerald was completely lost. “The last step is all about constructing a brand-new past for Captain Derek Keegan. Sarah asks one of her ‘filter builder’ friends to erect a cloud of 7th World Resistance activity around the data nodes that are Keegan’s actual history. The filter builder, using controller algorithms, sends out a squad of those tweaks to rearrange the apparent latticework of Keegan’s past.”
AndrzejD jumped in, catching the drift of SevD’s scheme. “You are betting that the firstWorld has sniffers checking on their own people, and that those sniffer programs will pick up Keegan’s radical hidden life and report him to the authorities, right?”
“I’m not betting—I know it will happen. I know two coders who built some of those sniffer programs. They told me all about it at the time. The firstWorld has to subcontract all their complex coding to jobbers like me, and all contractors talk shop among themselves.”
“Just like facility mechanics, everyone talks shop. It’s one of the only safe subjects. Do we have to activate these sniffer programs in some way?”
“No, we stay far away from them. One thing I remember is that they built in a fair bit of false flag detection and misappropriation defense. Everyone was worried about spoofing. We just watch from afar.” SevD looked at LoriD. “So, he shouldn’t get killed.” And then he looked at Gerald. “But he will surely feel your pain, Gerald.”
LoriD could see it clear as day. “Captain Keegan’s life is going to suck starting a day after those sniffers spot him. I know right where it will start, too. Back when I worked at UNworld, I used to have to go there all the time to inspect and patch code in real-time. There is this big building right on the Potomac, not far from where I used to live. It’s one of the few they bothered to dam-protect in that area because it was so important. In the middle of the building, protected six ways from Sunday against outside radiation of any kind, is a huge room full of bots, screens, and upper-level managers. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that feels anything like Sarah. It’s the nexus for all the most critical early warning systems run by the U.N.A. It’s buried within the UNworld gamespace for concealment, and it’s a pretty spooky place. I didn’t like going there, but the problems were usually interesting.”
Asshole Tax
At 5:15 AM Mountain Time, Executive Dorm, Rattlesnake Inc., Derek Keegan was stepping out of the cold-water tub in the exercise area, almost the last step in his daily ablutions. Workout, shave, shower, cold dunk in mountain water, and finally 20 minutes of reflection and organization of thoughts with coffee. Sitting in the top floor of the old stone turret on the corner of the building, looking west and south over Fort Collins, he contemplated his day. Who was Sevier Blume?
Thirty-seven separate tips and triggers tracked down over 4 days—an all-out effort costing a serious amount of money. Top teams charging top dollar. No corporate walls to scale, no false avatars to discount, no U.N.A. protections to circumvent. He would check again in a few minutes, after breakfast, but he had no expectations that any of the taps on Blume’s friends and acquaintances would suddenly produce a lead. Disappeared into fucking thin air. That doesn’t happen.
He went down the circular stairs pinned to the stones of the turret wall, across the meeting area towards the dining mess. Air quality warnings double-red on the greeting screens. He’d have a god damn mask on every time he went outside again today. He was stumped on this Blume guy. He didn’t even have a real plan for the day, except he’d have to start with an uncomfortable call over to Marc Heather at TIC. At least, he didn’t actually work for Heather or at TIC, either of which would really suck. That was the beauty of subcontracting. It was relatively easy to put up with assholes short-term. You just charged them extra for making life more difficult than necessary. Derek referred to it regularly with his team as the asshole tax.
He took his tray to the nutrition wall and pushed the same buttons in the same order as every other day, when he was here at home in the barracks. Salmon paste on toasted bagel, vegite patties, and more coffee. He sat by himself and took out his dash. One more unwritten rule for life in the barracks: Never look at your dash until the ablutions are done and you have food in front of you.
Please, spare me. Not these miserable pukes again. He must have triggered something during his research on Sevier Blume. He had organized a couple of routine question sessions on 7th Worlders. They knew of Blume, under a previous name, through coding contracts, but no one had ever met him. Now his dash was packed up with all manner of stuff about the 7th World Resistance. This would require an hour of his morning resetting all his filters and probably draining his various digital garbage bins. At least it was an excuse for not going outside into the bad air. He needed more coffee and to call Marc Heather first.
He caught Heather coming out of a midmorning meeting and heading back to his office. Derek held for a deadly three minutes while Heather made it to his office and established a secure stream. Boy, did he look tired. Having your CEO charged with corporate sabotage and taken into custody during the morning shows on the East Coast probably made for a permanent bad day.
“How is it possible to not fucking find him? He is still pinging us every day, so he is somewhere. First, he took our money—a lot of it—and now he is setting Mr. Murcheson up for a U.N.C.C. conviction. He must be working for Paladin now.” Heather had been sitting, but now he pushed his chair back and stomped towards the feed camera. “Speaking of stealing money, if you don’t find Blume today, I’m cancelling the contract and suing you for my deposit back.”
Captain Derek Keegan was a very controlled man. There was not an eye batted, no flush to his cheeks, and his breathing was steady. “I understand, sir. I’m sure we will have him at least within our sights
by E.O.B. today. I’ll report back no later than this time tomorrow. Have a great day.”
The stream went blank, and Derek sat at his desk thinking. He should cut Heather a little slack given all the troubles he was dealing with. That being said, he was glad they had his money in their bank. There was no way they were going to sue for it back. Corporate dicks like Marc Heather loved to make big threats involving law-bots.
Next. 8:20 AM Mountain Time. Time to muck out whatever 7th World burdocks were clinging to his profiles.
Just then: 10:20 AM EST. A tiny sniffer bot, whirling through the data-gravitation belt that surrounded a good-sized node cluster defined as the 7th World Resistance, took its first notice of a new association. On a second pass, only a few seconds later, the bot noted strong affinity intensification. The bot called for backup before further investigation, and a flag was dropped.
9:05 AM MT. What a mess. He was being inundated with shrill monographs and crude streams of forged speeches calling for societal disruptions of all sorts. Derek couldn’t understand why his filters were letting this crap through no matter how he adjusted the settings. He was just about to call down to IT for help when one of the streams caught his eye. The man on the freeze-frame intro was himself: Derek Keegan, with a beard and scarred forehead, but still him. His feet and hands turned cold even before he opened the stream to see what it, or he, would say.
9:20 AM MT. He saw the writing on the wall, and he didn’t call IT. He walked calmly to his quarters and pulled an ever-ready travel pack from his closet. He wrote a note by hand explaining he was being spoofed and left it on the table, knowing it was futile. Civilian clothes and energy gun in his bag, he picked up a handful of active filter masks from the supply room and headed out the back door to the podrone park, half expecting to hear an alarm trigger. Not yet.
Picking a podrone at the back of the park, he scanned his face and requisitioned the drone. He set the destination for TIC headquarters in NYC, which registered as just within the range of the lightweight craft. Then he walked to the edge of the park and picked up a paving stone from the curb edging and placed it on the seat of the craft. Three more and he had enough weight to equal his body and to allow the podrone to sense there was a rider in place. Hitting “Start Trip,” he jerked his arm back from the cab window.
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