“Just dump them on the surface,” she said. “They’ll burn, when the sun gets high enough.”
“Ha! Good suggestion, Director.”
The brigadier left.
Alone, she put down her teacup. It clattered noisily against the saucer. She clenched her fists, squeezed her eyes closed, and pushed out several deep breaths. Then she returned to her desk.
In addition to being the director of UNVRP, she was also the lay judge of the Inferior Space Circuit Court. And she had a very important trial to prepare for.
★
The trial of the rioters started at 8 a.m. sharp. By 7:30, the former ballroom of Hotel Mercury—the largest public space in the hab—was packed.
Cydney sailed in at 7:59 and occupied the seat in the VIP section that Angelica had reserved for her.
Marines dragged the rioters into the ballroom and tossed them into an improvised pen of folding chairs joined together with splart.
The peacekeepers were herded into another pen, and given coffee and danishes.
The first item on the docket was Mike Vlajkovic’s trial for the murder of Zazoë Heap.
Cydney slumped in the VIP section, vidding the proceedings without much interest.
She was worried about Elfrida. Where was she?
Crowd-control drones circled above the spectators on wings that made a noise like old air-conditioners. The noise made it hard to hear what was being said on stage. Angelica, black-robed, sat on the judge’s bench with her eyes closed. Amid this atmosphere of formulaic proceduralism, Cydney’s commentary lacked its usual sparkle.
Aidan, the leader of her production team in Los Angeles, emailed her. “What’s up, Cyds? Touch of PTSD?”
Stung, Cydney tried harder. ~OK, here we go. Vlajkovic’s lawyer is about to deliver its opening statement.
The lawyer was a robot. It rolled to the center of the stage. After a bow to Angelica, it turned its headpart to face the crowd. “Your honor, the forensic evidence I am about to introduce will prove that my client did not kill Zazoë Heap. Contrary to media reports, she was not shot. She suffered mild pulmonary edema due to a very brief exposure to the so-called knockout gas which was introduced into the atmosphere during the incident. However, this would not have been fatal. The cause of her tragic and unnecessary death was self-euthanasia.”
Cheers and boos drowned the lawyer out. Cydney, wide awake now, emailed Aidan. “Urrr! I should have guessed! I was on the phone with her the whole time and there definitely wasn’t any blood! But she did throw up. And now I know why. She must have taken a peace pill, and then changed her mind. But it was too late. Serves her right for giving up when the going got tough.”
After pressing send, she thought: What about you, Elfrida? Did you give up? I thought you weren’t the type to kill yourself. But what does anyone know about anyone?
Angelica gavelled the crowd silent, and reminded them that there were still 116 victims to account for. The trial then devolved into a lawyers’ brawl. All the lawyers were MIs from UNVRP’s legal department, downloaded for the occasion into housekeeping bots. These had been wrapped in black skirts to make them look more lawyerly. They certainly acted lawyerly. Indifferent to the boredom of the solar system, they all tried to prove, in convoluted sentences studded with nests of parentheses, that the others’ client(s) had done all the killing / escalated the crisis / started it.
Angelica sat on the judge’s bench, sphinx-like. Her eyes were still closed. She was probably vidding the latest episode of Desperate Housewives of Ganymede.
“Um, Cyds?” Aidan emailed. “Still alive?”
Cydney subvocalized, ~Yeah, hey, guys. I’m still here. The reason I’m not commentating is because I am worried out of my fucking MIND about my girlfriend. She’s been missing since the night of the riot. And lots of other people are still missing, too, and there’s a rumor that they got stuffed into the recycling to hide the fact that EVEN MORE than 117 people died, and what if that happened to Elfrida? So I asked that bitch up there, yeah her, to search for her. I mean search PROPERLY. And she said, well, Dr. Hasselblatter left, didn’t he? He basically commandeered a Heavycruiser to get home. Elfrida probably went with him. And I’m like, she did NOT! She did NOT frag off home without even saying goodbye to me. And she, I mean Angie, said, at some point you will have to make up your mind: which of us do you want to be with? Um, yeah, I kind of held off on sharing that whole development with you guys. But I’ve made up my mind now. It’s Elfrida I love. I love her more than I ever thought I COULD love someone. And I don’t care if she’s wrong for me, or not in my league, or whatever, I just want her BACK!
11 minutes later, this flooded live across 18 million-odd screens and retinal implants on Earth. Aidan and his team, in Los Angeles, clutched their heads in despair.
A few seconds later, they exchanged high-fives as 18 million viewers became 19, 20, 21 million—all hoping for more.
But Cydney had logged off.
★
In the small hours of the next morning, the proceedings came to an end. Angelica Lin had compressed a trial that would normally have taken months, if not years, into 21 hours, seven minutes, and thirty-four seconds.
The crowd of spectators had shrunk considerably. Only a handful remained to hear the verdict, including Cydney. Many events in this era were run by bots, meaning ungodly long stretches of argy-bargy without breaks, so content providers like Cydney had tricks for staying the course: stim and coffee, but not at the same time; wear an EVA diaper under your clothes … She hadn’t gone that far this time, but she had been awake for 37 hours.
She stared blearily at Angelica. In her sleep-deprived state, she irrationally hoped that Angelica’s verdict would somehow solve the riddle of Elfrida’s disappearance.
Though Angelica had also been awake for a day and a half, her voice was clear. “On the basis of evidence and principle,” she said, “I find the defendants not guilty.”
Not guilty!
The headparts of the lawyers lit up, indicating their desire to speak. They all rolled into the middle of the stage at once. Angelica gestured. They stopped.
“That’s better,” Angelica said.
Amid the excitement in the courtroom, the crowd-control drones went nuts. They did not control the crowd. They zoomed around in rapturous circles.
Half of the Marines left the room, breaking into a run before they quite reached the door.
Mike Vlajkovic pumped his fists in the air, his face alight with joy.
Fully awake now, Cydney strained to hear over the cheers of the spectators.
“On this day,” Angelica was yelling, “by the authority invested in me as director of UNVRP and lay judge of Inferior Space, I declare Mercury to be an independent republic. UNVRP’s assets and personnel will be transferred to the new republic, effective immediately, and contingent on the consent of said personnel. Regarding everyone else, the open citizenship application period starts today and will run for one year. Anyone who doesn’t wish to be a citizen of the Republic of Mercury may self-deport. But we’d be more than happy to have all of you. That offer is also open to the employees of the private-sector companies operating on Mercury.”
Cydney said aloud, “Can she do that?”
The only other person left in the VIP seating area was Mork Rapp, the environmentalist, who’d been left behind when the other ex-candidates fled on the Dead Weather. He said, “It’s a joke. An elaborate joke.”
“I’m not sure,” Cydney said.
“This idea has been kicked around before. Doug Wright thinks it’s his idea. He’ll probably sue her.”
Angelica walked down the ramp from the stage. The lawyers came back to life and followed her. When the remaining Marines approached her, the lawyers butted them, forcing them back.
“She’s jarked the lawyers,” Cydney said.
“You see, you see? It is a joke.”
More people pushed into the ballroom as the news flashed through the hab. The walls and
ceiling suddenly brightened. The old wallpaper theme had been deleted and replaced by a design of a flag that showed a blazing sun. The flag was being held up by a cartoon person and a cartoon robot. It repeated all over the room, casting a warm light over the bedlam. This proved to Cydney that Angelica had planned this all out beforehand.
From the midst of the ecstatic mob, Angelica shouted, “More details, draft constitution, etcetera, coming later! For now, I’ll just name the core principle of our republic! It is equality!”
“Uh oh,” Mork Rapp said. He and Cydney were now standing on their ergoforms, straining to see.
“What?”
“A republic founded on the principle of equality?”
“So?”
“Are you completely unfamiliar with history?”
“Pretty much.”
The Marines were trying to reach Angelica. They could not physically penetrate the crowd of Vlajkovic sympathizers, who outnumbered them ten to one.
“I get it,” Cydney said. “The not-guilty verdict was to win the plebs over, so they’d prevent Star Force from grabbing her! The Marines aren’t allowed to use force unless someone’s actually waving a weapon. They’re actually kind of useless, aren’t they?”
“Look,” Mork Rapp said. “The drones.”
The crowd-control drones were flying around the room, spraying silly string.
“How’d she get them to do that? You cannot hack Star Force hardware.” Mork Rapp rubbed his chin. “Except, she has.”
“Well, she used to be a Marine herself,” Cydney said.
23 Years Earlier. Callisto
Angelica sat crosslegged, pinching crumbs off the single nutriblock that was her ration for today. As the siege of Callisto dragged on, the food situation had gotten extreme. The loss of the experimental hydroponics module meant they had no fresh vegetables, and the vitamin C supplements had long since run out. Some of the hostages had scurvy.
Mad Konstantin was negotiating with the fleet in orbit to have supplies dropped
Angelica watched him playing poker with two of his bots, Trix and Pranx. He had five bots, all styled as attractive women. Konstantin bragged about their intelligence, but they couldn’t be that smart, since they did whatever Konstantin wanted.
Such as playing Texas Hold’em for nutriblocks.
C-Mutt and Gloria dos Santos were playing, too.
“No, no,” C-Mutt moaned. “You had a pair of threes, Glory. You shoulda re-raised!”
“It’s her fault,” dos Santos said, smacking Trix on the leg. “She was twiddling her nose stud. It distracted me. Well, I guess I’m out.”
Angelica leaned in the direction of the poker game, propping herself on a locked elbow, and said loudly, “What do you expect when you play poker with bots? How are you gonna win? They’re bots. They’re built with poker faces.”
.Actually, this was not true of Konstantin X’s bots. They were capable of very human-like expressions. Once, Angelica had accidentally touched Trix’s face. It felt like skin, but colder, probably fleximinium. They were far and away the most realistic bots Angelica had ever seen. What bugged her was how much they must have cost … unless Mad Konstantin had stolen them. That was always a possibility.
“Aw, Glory,” Trix said to dos Santos in her sweet, chirpy voice. “I’ll give you some of my nutriblocks. I don’t need to eat, anyway. And it’s more fun when you play.”
“Women,” said Konstantin to C-Mutt, rolling his eyes. “They just don’t understand that the point of competition is to humiliate your rivals and then laugh heartlessly at them.”
C-Mutt snorted. He said to dos Santos, “Wanna play strip poker?”
“What’re the rules?”
“Oh, it’s easy. You lose a hand, you take off an item of clothing. I lose a hand, Trix takes something off. She loses a hand …”
“Hey! I see what you did there,” dos Santos giggled.
And Konstantin X just sat quietly, smiling to himself, straightening the row of nutriblocks he had won.
Other hostages drifted over, joined the game, traded winning hands for hugs and footrubs. Everyone was in a good mood, optimistic about the possibility of the supply drop. Trix stood up and sang a Belter Blues tune about home, sweet home; actually it was a recorded track, piped through her mouth, but it looked and sounded as if the bot were really singing. The hostages floated, listening, bundled in layers of garments like medieval peasants. They’d turned the heat way down to save power. The bots were bundled up, too, even though they didn’t need it. A psychological trick to encourage their acceptance.
Angelica, in her self-imposed exile from the group, tried to work out what bothered her most. Was it that everyone seemed to have forgotten the bots were bots? Or was it that they seemed to have forgotten the bots belonged to Mad Konstantin?
She edged over to where he stood slightly apart from the group. “What’s your game?” she said, low.
“What do you mean, Angie?”
“OK,” she said. “I’ll rephrase. Why are you such a dickshit?”
He blinked his velvety dark eyes. “Well, when I was a kid, my mother told me I could do anything, if I only tried hard enough. Maybe that explains it.”
“Oh,” she said in frustration.
“There is no game, Angie. I believe what I believe. First the planets, then the stars. That’s the destiny of the human race. But we’re never gonna get there unless we accept that MIs are part of the human race, too. We need to partner with them, not enslave them.”
“Mars.”
“We have to get over Mars sometime.”
“Do you expect me to get over Drayawray? And the Marines who were asleep when your spaceship landed on them?”
Konstantin X shrugged. “You’re the one with a guilt problem, not me, Angie. ”
She looked in his eyes and knew he meant it. He did not feel one smidgen of guilt over the hundreds of people he had killed.
“Your problem is you’re a stone-cold sociopath,” she said.
“Try this thought experiment.” He was as relaxed as ever. “What if, to reach the stars, it’s gonna take people like me? Think about the greatest achievers in human history. Napoleon. Genghis Khan. Stalin. You can bet they didn’t shed any tears over a few dead grunts here and there.”
“They were mass murderers.”
“Acknowledged. Now think about the PLAN. The deadliest foe humanity has ever faced. Think about the force opposing it—Star Force—your force. Ask yourself why we haven’t won yet.”
She turned away sharply, trying to disguise the fact that he was backing her down. But of course, he’d know. He could read people like a scanner.
“I’m gonna go change out the CO2 filters.” They were down to reusing old ones, cleaning them by hand. “It’s starting to stink in here.”
“I’m only trying to help you,” he called after her.
xxv.
A buzz of celebration filled the ballroom. The lawyers were serving champagne. The rioters hugged their families. Medibots worked with laser scalpels, topical anesthetic, and bandages to de-splart them from each other.
Even the peacekeepers had jumped on Angelica’s bandwagon. Once freed from custody, they had taken it on themselves to round up the rest of the UNVRP executives. These gray-faced careerists were now trying to convince Angelica that they would have supported her, of course they would, if they had known what she was planning.
Angelica laughed and joked with them. But even from a distance, Cydney could tell that she was still on edge.
And why shouldn’t she be?
~They’ll never let her get away with this, Cydney subvocalized to her feed. ~You can’t just declare independence!!!
Her comms program replied: Transmission failed.
~Why?!?
No internet access. Trying again to connect with relay satellite … Attempt failed. Trying again …
“Shit,” Cydney said to Mork Rapp. “She’s blocking my comms!”
“Mine, too
. But I don’t think it’s her. More likely to be Star Force.”
“Oh. Oh, of course.” Cydney realized she hadn’t seen any of the Marines in a while. Rather than risk a violent showdown, they must’ve decided to contain the situation and await further orders. “They must’ve shut down our comms so the solar system can’t find out what’s happening. I wonder how they did that?”
“They have a Heavycruiser. It would be the work of a moment to shoot down UNVRP’s relay satellite.”
“What’s happening now?”
A commotion had broken out at the doors of the ballroom. People pressed back, making way for someone.
Something.
A horde of monsters danced into the room.
Dark purple, matte-skinned, they resembled six-legged spiders, two meters high at the shoulder. Their headparts bristled with sockets, some with drill bits and cutter lasers attached. Above this hardware, huge eyes blinked vapidly.
Cydney screeched, “Oh my God! What are those? Where did they come from? What are they doing here?”
“They’re phavatars. Vinge-classes. An older telepresence platform. They don’t make them anymore. Too, um, non-humanoid.”
“You’re not kidding. They look like something out of an alien invasion movie.”
It did feel as if the ballroom were being invaded. Twenty … thirty … forty … Cydney gave up counting the phavatars.
It reassured her somewhat that the locals weren’t scared of them. Parents boosted children onto their backs. Party hats were jokingly placed on their headparts.
Angelica advanced to meet them, and offered a curtsey to the one in the lead. “Welcome! May I have your names?”
A voice boomed through the ballroom. “They call me Gonzo.”
“And I’m Mad Dog,” said a different voice.
The phavatars had no mouths; they were talking through integrated speakers in their headparts. Their rich, modulated voices did not match their inhuman frames.
“Honored to meet you,” Angelica smiled. She turned to face her human supporters. “In the Republic of Mercury,” she declared, “equality will no longer be a human privilege. Bots are people, too! It’s only fair that we should share the rights and responsibilities of citizenship with those who take the rads for us. So, let’s have a big hand for our non-organic friends!”
The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy: Books 1-4 of the Space Opera Thriller Series Page 81