“I thought about getting my BCI removed, too,” Mendoza said. “After 4 Vesta. That was how the PLAN killed everyone. It tricked them into downloading its neuroware into their BCIs.”
“But you kept yours?”
“I just never got around to having it taken out. And it really is convenient.”
“Convenience kills,” the Jesuit intoned. He had a big, bony face, haloed by an Afro. His naturally grim expression made his deadpan humor easy to miss, but Mendoza was getting used to it. He laughed, and the Jesuit winked.
“On a not quite unrelated note,” Fr. Lynch added. “You mentioned a certain private forum.”
Mendoza tensed.
“You told me you won’t be posting there anymore, and I hope you’ll keep to that. But, if it’s no trouble, I wonder if you could invite me?”
“Father!”
“There’s neither crime nor sin in looking. And to tell you the truth, I’ve always been interested in Mars, too.”
★
Straphanging on his way home, Mendoza sent Fr. Lynch an invitation to join All-We-Know-About-Mars. He got a notification a few minutes later that the invitation had been accepted. He smiled to himself.
Maybe, just maybe, he’d found not just a kendo sensei, not just a confessor, but … a friend.
Which made him remember the thing he wasn’t telling Fr. Lynch.
(Yes, of course there was something.)
And that made him feel guilty all over again.
But it didn’t matter. Surely it didn’t matter. Anyway, there was no way the Jesuit could find out …
The next day, Nate Sindikuwabo called Mendoza over and told him he was being transferred.
“What have I done?” Mendoza said in terror.
“Huh? Nothing.”
Sindikuwabo snapped his fingers. Privacy baffles rose up around them and spliced themselves into the ceiling.
“Big news!” Sindikuwabo said, once the baffles were in place. “UNVRP is twilighting the asteroid capture program. Ramping up operations on Mercury. Basically, we’re launching Phase Five. Venus, here we come! We’re gonna get that baby terraformed ahead of schedule.”
“All right …. that’s big. Is it happening because Pope shuffled off this mortal coil?”
“Nah. It was already in the works. Pope greenlighted it himself. I know everyone acted like the sky was falling when he passed away, but he wasn’t a monarch. Just a bureaucrat. We aren’t expecting his successor to change any of his policies.”
“Any news on that?”
They were referring to the upcoming election of Charles K. Pope’s successor. Uniquely among UN agencies, UNVRP had an elected director, for reasons having to do with the ambiguous political status of Mercury, where UNVRP was headquartered. Mendoza wondered if Elfrida would get involved in the election. Judging from the news feeds, it was shaping up to be an exciting contest.
But Sindikuwabo said, “Ignore the media. Pope’s deputy, Dr. Ulysses Seth, is running; he’ll get the job. People want continuity, not upheaval.”
“So why’s the asteroid capture program being axed?”
A trace of compassion softened Sindikuwabo’s voice. “Come on, Mendoza. We got 4 Vesta. After the PLAN’s malware destroyed the colonies there, we made a deal with the Chinese to move 4 Vesta across Earth’s orbit and throw it at Venus. That rock contains five percent of the mass in the entire frigging asteroid belt. We don’t need any more little 1015 kg pebbles.”
“I see.”
“Cheer up. You aren’t out of a job. We’re all being reassigned, and you’re going first, by special request from the Mercury Resource Management Support Group.”
“The what?”
“I know, right? Never heard of them. Well, they’re on the twelfth floor at the moment, but they’re moving to the sixteenth floor. Getting all of it,” Sindikuwabo said enviously. In Shackleton City, the more room you had to spread out, the more important you were.
“The Mercury Resource Management Support Group,” Mendoza pondered. “That sounds like something to do with mining. I don’t really understand how my skill set would be relevant.”
“Your skills are universally relevant,” Sindikuwabo said with a big smile. “Anyway, it should be an interesting change of pace.”
“If we’re all being reassigned, where will you be going, if I can ask?”
“Back to Earth,” Sindikuwabo said. “Thank fuck. I will never, ever wear a cravat again.”
iii.
Mendoza didn’t go to kendo practice that week. He was busy wiping every trace of his activities off the computer systems at work. So were all his colleagues. Mendoza just had more to wipe.
In his spare moments, he researched the Mercury Resource Management Support Group (MeReMSG). There wasn’t much to find out. The group collated hardware demand from UNVRP’s field operations, projected raw material requirements based on that data, and nagged the mining crew on Mercury to improve their productivity. Presumably, their role in the Phase 5 ramp would be more of the same, on a bigger scale.
Mendoza showed up early for his first day of work, a Sunday. There were no weekends in Shackleton City—a departure from the Victorian template; it made more sense to stagger everyone’s holidays to smooth out infrastructure demand peaks. It also meant that Mendoza couldn’t fulfill his Sunday Mass obligation. Clad in a frock coat and top hat, to make the best possible impression, he entered the office on the sixteenth floor of Doyle Tower.
Empty. His new boss clearly did not believe in making everyone show up at the crack of dawn. That was a relief.
The new office, like his old one, was barren to the naked eye. Fake wood panels lined the walls. A ladder and plasterer’s tools in the middle of the room showed where two offices had been knocked into one to accommodate MeReMSG’s anticipated expansion. Rows of standing desks accentuated the period atmosphere. These were standard issue in Shackleton City. As well as looking Dickensian, they retarded muscle and bone loss from inactivity. However, Mendoza spotted several high stools, fabbed on home printers and smuggled into the office to foil the health police. He had brought his own stool from downstairs.
He hung his topper on the hat tree by the door and logged into the MeReMSG search space.
A virtual overlay leapt into existence around him, projected on his retinal implants. The office was still there, but it was far messier. Filing cabinets towered in such profusion that, had they been real, you could hardly walk between the desks. The desks themselves were heaped with workloads, represented as stacks of files, swarms of icons, or in one case, a basket full of realistically meowing kittens. Mendoza foresaw that that was going to get annoying. He moved through the virtual maze, reflexively turning sideways to edge between the unreal filing cabinets, looking for a vacant desk to set his stool at.
“Screw this crappy-ass filing system,” someone muttered. “It’s got to be here somewhere!”
Mendoza had seen with his own eyes that there was no one in the office. That meant the voice was coming through his iEars transducer implants, not his ears. The speaker was only here virtually.
Social protocol still applied. “Hello?”
“Huh? Who’s there?”
A pale, balding man prairie-dogged up from behind the filing cabinets that blocked the window.
“Oh. Hello. You must be … John Mendoza? The psephologist?”
Fortyish, receding light brown hair, blue eyes. Pureblood, Mendoza thought, and was ashamed of the thought. Then he registered what the man had said. “Psephologist?” He laughed.
“The science of polls and voting. Not you? Wrong guy?”
“No, no, I was just surprised. I know what psephology is. I guess you could say I’m a psephologist. I got my degree in the subject. But the demand isn’t there, so I ended up in data analysis.” Mendoza realized that he was not doing a very good job of selling himself to his new boss, assuming that was who this was. “I’m sorry, should I just sit anywhere?”
“Your guess is
as good as mine. I don’t work here. I was just looking for something. Maybe you could help me out.”
Mendoza put down his stool and circled the last row of filing cabinets. Binders and folders, bristling with search tags, littered the floor. The man flipping through them was dressed flamboyantly for Shackleton City—for anywhere, as a matter of fact. Red and yellow striped trousers clashed with a royal purple tailcoat. A lace cravat mounted to his stubbly chin, matching his white leather boots. The overall effect fell somewhere between dandy and graphics program malfunction. Of course, this was just an avatar. The guy might look ordinary in real life, although Mendoza’s own avatar was synced to his actual appearance.
The man reached into a filing cabinet and dragged out another armload of folders, which he dumped at Mendoza’s feet.
“Totally useless filing system. Nothing’s properly tagged. Mind helping me go through these? We’re looking for historical polling data on resource extraction from Mercury.”
“There’s polling data on resource extraction from Mercury?” Mendoza began to see what his new job might consist of. It did not fill him with excitement.
“The United Nations does theoretically derive its legitimacy from citizen buy-in.”
They searched the archives without success until Mendoza’s new boss turned up. She was a sharp-faced woman named Preeti Dillinger. She informed them that they’d been wasting their time. No historical polling data existed.
“You’re kidding,” the virtual man said. “We’re talking about a planet. No one has ever bothered to ask the public how they feel about dismembering it for resources?”
A small thundercloud appeared over the head of Dillinger’s avatar. “Historically, Mercury hasn’t been seen as an influencer of public sentiment. Most people on Earth are hardly aware of its existence. That said, all the major resource companies have a presence there. Some of them may have conducted their own polling.”
“No use to me. I assume you’re going to do some polling now?” The man slapped the shoulder of Mendoza’s avatar in a comradely way. Mendoza’s BCI manufactured the illusion of physical contact. “Now you’ve got a professional psephologist on board.”
“Polling is one component of the Phase 5 ramp, yes. Now, if you don’t mind, Mr. Lorna …”
“Fine, fine; I know where I’m not wanted.” The virtual man winked at Mendoza and vanished.
During the conversation, several more MeReMSG employees had come into the office.
“That was Derek Lorna, director of the Leadership in Robotics Institute,” Dillinger told them. “He thinks he can go wherever he likes, do whatever he likes. The sad thing is, he can. Why? Because he’s a universally acknowledged genius.” She rolled her eyes. “Excuse me, gang. I’ve got kittens that need feeding.”
★
Before the morning was out, Mendoza understood that the Mercury Resource Extraction Support Group was a shambles. The slipshod filing system and Dillinger’s kittens were just the most visible signs of disorder.
As was often the way with tiny teams that never caused any trouble, MeReMSG had chugged along placidly for years, not troubling themselves to codify or document their procedures. Why bother, when the old-timers had it all in their heads? This stemmed from both laziness and fear. Mendoza recognized the mindset from his days in the Astrodata Analysis Group: the less paperwork you generated, the less you were at risk of being held accountable for it.
But as their early-morning visitor, Derek Lorna, had mentioned, you were supposed to get public approval for resource extraction operations, especially when these were funded by the UN taxpayer. Thus, Mendoza’s job would be to craft polls that tricked the UN taxpayer into approving of the ramp-up of a mining operation that would extract 1035 kilograms of iron ore and other silicates from Mercury’s crust, on a tight schedule, utilizing hardware that either didn’t exist or hadn’t been procured yet.
Drawing on his long-ago training, Mendoza designed graphics, animations, and questions that were weighted to produce the desired result. It was fun to let his visual-arts side come out and play. But he regularly found himself with hours to kill while his proposals were stuck in Dillinger’s basket of kittens. He drifted back to the Mars forums.
There’s neither sin nor crime in looking …
A new poster had shown up on All-We-Know-About-Mars/secret.cloud. ‘Fragger1’ was grabbing all the kudos that had formerly been Mendoza’s, even though he had no fresh data to share. He just posted rants about how urgent it was to FIGHT BACK against the PLAN before it EXTERMINATED humanity. Mendoza skimmed long reply threads consisting basically of “Yes, but.” He could not resist posting a reply of his own, in support of Fragger1’s position: “Yes, agree 100%. If not now, when?”
Fragger1 responded: “YEEAHH! And if not us, WHO!?!”
But HOW, Fragger1? Mendoza thought. That would seem to be the problem, wouldn’t it?
He sighed. He’d broken his promise to Fr. Lynch, and for what? For who? Fragger1 was just another internet warrior—probably a mild-mannered office worker in real life.
He looked up from his screens and saw his new colleagues trickling out of the office. Lunchtime. He ordered chicken shawarma from one of the restaurants off Hope Circus.
On Earth, takeout was normally delivered by drones that flew up to your front door, or your office window. This was Shackleton City, so his food was delivered by a teenage boy who expected a tip.
As he ate, he started to return to All-We-Know-About-Mars, to see if Fragger1 had posted anything else, but then he stopped. Was he really going to keep on doing this?
No, he told himself. No, and again no.
With an effort of will, he canceled his security redirects and called up a news feed. He checked for news about the UNVRP election. Just what they’d expect him to be interested in. They’d never know he was mostly searching for glimpses of Elfrida.
★
An email popped into his HUD.
From: Derek Lorna [ID string attached]
“Hey, fellow! It was great meeting you the other day. I was wondering if you could help me out with that issue we were discussing? Put together a sample poll on the Phase 5 ramp, without mentioning it as such, natch. I just want to know what such a poll would look like. Doesn’t have to be done immediately. Whenever you’ve got a minute. Thanks!”
Mendoza blinked all the clutter out of his retinal display. Unobscured by virtual overlays, the office looked strange. People stood or sat at their desks, staring at their screens, occasionally making odd gestures, or mumbling under their breath. The fake sunlight of Wellsland shone in through the windows.
Put together a sample poll on the Phase 5 ramp.
The request struck him as odd. This was the same thing he was doing for MeReMSG. So why hadn’t Lorna gone through Preeti Dillinger, if he wanted a sample? Why had he contacted Mendoza directly?
Without mentioning it as such, natch.
There was the clue. UNVRP was increasingly unpopular. Mendoza knew they’d never get approval of the Phase 5 ramp if the public connected it with the Venus Project. Lorna must have reached the same conclusion independently.
Which left the question of what business it was of his, anyway.
And Mendoza knew the answer to that: None whatsoever.
But he needed some distraction from the Mars forums. And Lorna was a man you did not want to piss off. So he added some finishing touches to one of his sample polls, and sent it.
★
Luna, once known simply as the Moon, had first been settled in the mid-21st century by sixteen scientists, eleven chickens, and two pigs (one of which promptly died). Those pioneers had established their base on the sunny side of Malapert Mountain because it was near water—in the bottoms of the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole; because it was covered with thick, workable regolith; and because it stayed in sunlight all year round, guaranteeing a permanent supply of solar energy.
Since then, humanity had spread to the north
pole, the dark side of the moon, and the equatorial regions. That was when the lunar economy had really taken off. The equator was where the helium-3 was. Nowadays, nearly-free energy flooded the grid throughout the lunar days and nights. The conurbation known as Shackleton City sprawled over 150 horizontal and eight vertical kilometers, including its many exurban bedroom communities. That original outpost on Malapert Mountain had long since turned into a tourist attraction, complete with one live pig and one authentically dead-looking plastic one.
However, you could still experience something akin to the isolation that those first pioneers must have felt, alone in the universe, 400,000 kilometers from home.
All you had to do was ride the commuter rail during rush hour.
Jammed in among the native residents of Shackleton City, Mendoza had never felt so alone. He’d taken the drastic step of emailing Elfrida, since he hadn’t heard from her. Nothing heavy, just a friendly ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’ And half an hour later, it had bounced back to him. She’d blocked his ID.
His isolation ended abruptly when a disembodied voice addressed him through his iEars.
“Hello … John Mendoza! You have been selected to participate in a public poll!”
Mendoza ground his teeth.
“Please confirm your participation by saying ‘Yes’!”
Voting was compulsory. ~Yes.
The poll materialized in front of him. It overlapped the real straphangers, but it was small enough that its face showed up nicely against the back of someone’s black frock coat. It was a teenage girl with a punky mop of blonde hair.
Mendoza recoiled in shock.
This was his poll.
The ‘sample’ he’d sent Derek Lorna just a few hours earlier.
It was out and running.
“So!” the poll said brightly, speaking the words he’d written for it. “Mercury is a small planet near the sun. We get a lot of stuff from there. If you’re seeing this on a screen, it was probably made on Mercury! Actually, Mercury is the whole reason we don’t have to have dirty, toxic, pollute-y mines on Earth anymore. But some people are saying that we should NOT expand our mining operations there. What do you think?!? Are they freaking nuts, or what?”
The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy: Books 1-4 of the Space Opera Thriller Series Page 96