Fall of the Core: Netcast 01 (The Frontiers Saga)

by Ryk Brown

  Hanna shifted to the right, following the change in red lights, continuing her report. “Reports of looting in major metropolitan areas continue as people scramble to stockpile basic necessities in the face of the rapidly spreading plague. Hundreds have died as a result of riots at major supermarkets and distribution centers, with thousands more injured. Many of the American states, choosing not to wait for federal support, have already imposed martial law in an effort to maintain order during the initial panic. Public leaders are urging citizens to stay in their homes and shelter-in-place, until such time as a system can be enacted to ensure the continued supply of basic needs and services for all during this crisis. In addition, forty-seven of the eighty-five Federated States are considering restrictions on travel to and from their territories until such time as the method of transmission can be confirmed.”

  “She’s doing pretty good,” Graham told Arielle in a low voice.

  “Yes, she is,” Arielle agreed as she continued watching the monitor from the back of the studio. “She hasn’t gotten to the hard part yet, though.”

  “There have been reports of terrorist attacks in dozens of cities across the Federation, the European Union, and Asia. Claims of responsibility for the attacks have come from the Natural Order, the United Liberation Front, the Black Day, and the Coalition for the Dissolution of the Federation. Few believe that any of these organizations have the capability to create and distribute the Twister or Klaria viruses. They instead suppose that such radical groups are simply taking advantage of overwhelmed security forces in densely populated areas. Bombs at government buildings in Paris, London, Berlin, Beijing, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, and many others have claimed thousands of additional lives. Most notably, a series of explosions in…” Hanna stumbled a moment. She cleared her throat and continued. “…in San Diego has wreaked havoc in the city center, as well as in several of the surrounding residential and business districts. Latest reports are more than three thousand dead, with casualties estimated in the tens of thousands. As rescue efforts progress, the numbers are expected to rise.”

  “I’m assuming that was the part you were worried about?” Graham said.

  “We’ve both got family in San Diego,” Arielle explained. “I got through to mine, but I wasn’t able to reach her parents yet. My fiancé is going to try and make contact with them.”

  “Well, she only stumbled a bit,” Graham replied. “Covered it well, too.”

  “A spokesman at the European Union confirmed that it is activating all reservists in preparation for martial law, beginning with the more heavily populated areas.”

  Hanna again turned to follow the active camera light. “The Martian government has promised to continue sending grain shipments to Earth, despite the fact that it has chosen to disallow all transit to their world for the foreseeable future. Officials also stand ready to send assistance in the form of medical personnel and other skilled professionals once the ability to reliably quarantine the bio-digital virus has been confirmed. Meantime, Martian companies stand ready to provide physical resources as needed.”

  “She handled that well.”

  Arielle turned to see Brent Tollison standing behind her and Graham. “She is great, when she keeps her mind focused and on task. It’s when she gets caught up in one of her crazy hunches that she gets into trouble.” Arielle commented.

  “I don’t know, her last one seems to have worked out okay. Maybe you should let her follow her crazy hunches more often.” Brent turned and headed for the control room.

  Arielle watched Mister Tollison walk away, and then turned to Graham. “Don’t you dare tell her he said that.”

  * * *

  “I had no idea a thirty minute netcast would be that tiring,” Hanna said to the stage manager as she walked toward the back of the studio. “Did I do okay?”

  “I’ve got some notes,” the stage manager replied, “but overall you did better than I thought you would.”

  “Thanks… I think,” Hanna replied as she took a drink from her water bottle. She noticed Arielle and pointed as she approached her and Graham. “I’m mad at you!”

  “I tried to tell you, Hanna…”

  “You should’ve tried harder.”

  “Did you really want to hear that, right before you went live?”

  “Yes! Maybe? I don’t know.” Hanna sighed. “Probably not. Damn it! Have you heard any…”

  “Sahmeed is trying to get in touch with them,” Arielle assured her. “He’ll keep us updated.” Arielle looked at Hanna, placing her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “No, not really. I mean, those headlines.”

  “Were you looking at the video feeds?”

  “Hell no,” Hanna exclaimed, “I was afraid to. I was just trying to read my lines without thinking about what it all meant.”

  “You might want to prepare yourself,” Graham warned. “It’ll hit you later, once everything calms down a bit.”

  “I don’t think things are going to calm down any time soon,” Mister Tollison said as he walked back over to them. Three men, two with serious expressions, accompanied him. “These gentlemen are from the International Counter-Terrorism Agency. You already know Mister Beals, from legal.”

  Hanna glanced nervously at both of their faces. “Am I under arrest?”

  “They just want to ask you some questions, Miss Bohl,” Mister Beals assured her. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

  “Maybe we should be there as well?” Arielle suggested.

  “We’ll be questioning you and Mister Barnett afterwards,” one of the agents promised, “separately. So, you’ll need to remain on the premises for now.”

  “They aren’t going anywhere,” Mister Tollison promised the agent.

  “Gentlemen, Miss Bohl,” the attorney began, “if you’ll follow me?”

  Hanna looked at Arielle. It wasn’t the first time that any of them had been interrogated by the authorities. On more than one occasion, their investigations had put them into suspicious circumstances, but never with the ICTA. They were the only law enforcement agency on Earth that had jurisdiction everywhere. They were the guys with black stealth shuttles and smart bullets. They were the guys with strike teams that made people disappear in the night. They answered to no one, other than an oversight panel composed of undisclosed representatives from every nation in the world.

  I’m innocent, Hanna told herself as she followed Mister Beals, with the two ICTA agents directly behind her. I have nothing to fear.

  She still swallowed hard.

  Hanna sat quietly on one side of the conference table, with one of NCN World’s attorneys next to her. She was thankful that he looked so calm and confident, because in spite of her best efforts to appear composed, deep down she was terrified.

  The two agents said nothing as they set up their devices across the table. One of them deployed an array of full immersion camera orbs similar to the ones used by Graham, only more compact. The orbs immediately took up positions in a standard FI pattern, surrounding everyone in the room. The other agent had setup some type of electronic device—a scanner of some type. She remembered hearing that ICTA agents had sensors that could detect whether or not a person was telling the truth, but she’d never seen it used.

  “Don’t you need a court order to…”

  One of the agents placed an electronic document sheet on the table in front of him, tapped to activate it, then slid it across the table to Mister Beals.

  Mister Beals picked up the electronic document sheet and read it carefully. “The warrant appears to be in order,” he said as he slid it back across the table to the agent. “Is my client being considered a suspect?”

  “Yes, she is,” the agent replied, “but so are five thousand, seven hundred and forty-seven others.”

  “But you are starting with Miss Bohl, are you not?”

  “We’re starting with over two hundred simultaneous interrogations all over the world.”

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nbsp; “But Miss Bohl is at the top of that list?”

  “She was contacted by someone claiming to have created both the Twister and Klaria viruses.” He looked at his partner. “Shall we get started, then?”

  The other agent activated the full immersion camera system and nodded to his partner.

  “This is agent Martin Oslo, badge number 1158572, along with agent Rodney Lund, badge number 1124779. The date is February first, twenty-five zero zero. The local time is zero nine four five eastern standard, fourteen forty-five, zulu. The location is conference room two five seven in the NCN World headquarters in New York City, in the state of New York, in the North American Federation. The subject is Hanna Bohl, a free-lance reporter now working for Netcast News World, and her advocate, Mister Jason Beals, also an employee of NCN World. Miss Beals, it is my duty, under the International Anti-terrorism Act of twenty-three zero four, to inform you that you are being considered a suspect in regards to an act of terrorism committed against the people of Earth. Before continuing, I need to confirm that your advocate has made you aware of your rights under the Anti-Terrorism Act?”

  “He has,” Hanna replied, her voice shaking slightly.

  “And has he reviewed each of your rights to your satisfaction?”

  “He has.”

  “Let it be shown then that the subject is aware of her rights under the ATA. Miss Bohl, do you wish to answer questions at this time?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you swear to answer all questions either truthfully, or not at all?”

  “I do.”

  “Per International warrant number 1157-A-4276, this interview is being recorded using full immersion digital recording equipment, and a full bio-sensory suite shall be used to determine the validity of your responses. The warrant also authorizes the use of direct memory extraction technology, should an agent of the ICTA deem you to be uncooperative.”

  Mister Beals looked concerned. “That’s a bit aggressive, don’t you think?”

  Agent Oslo looked at him with an unblinking stare. “Four million people have been infected in less than ten hours, Mister Beals. More than four hundred thousand of them have already died. Considering the situation, I don’t think it would be possible to be too aggressive.”

  “It’s fine,” Hanna insisted, putting her hand on Mister Beals’s forearm. “Agent Oslo is right.” She turned to face the agent. “I’ll cooperate with you in any way possible,” she assured him, “including a memory scan.”

  Agent Oslo observed Hanna, trying to read the expression in her eyes. “Thank you, Miss Bohl, we appreciate your cooperation.”

  * * *

  “Are you nuts?” Arielle shouted.

  “Who’s nuts?” Graham asked as he walked into the production office.

  “Jesus, you were in there longer than I was,” Hanna said.

  “I have a long and colorful past,” Graham replied dryly as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He turned and looked at Arielle. “So, who’s nuts?”

  “Hanna.”

  “That’s a given,” Graham said as he took a sip from his mug. “What has she done this time?”

  “She’s going to keep her neuro-digital implant in.”

  “What’s the problem, so long as she doesn’t turn it on?”

  “Oh, she’s going to turn it on.”

  “Uh, why?” Graham wondered.

  “The ICTA asked her to leave it on in the hopes that Timmy Twister will contact her again,” Brent explained.

  Graham laughed. “You’re right,” he agreed, pointing at Arielle. “She is nuts.”

  “People are dying by the tens of thousands, Graham,” Hanna reminded him angrily.

  “No reason to join them,” Graham replied. “Unless, of course, you’re nuts.”

  “What if they remove my nanites?” Hanna wondered.

  “It takes days to flush out all your nanites,” Arielle said. “Sometimes weeks.”

  “Without my nanites, he couldn’t do anything to hurt me,” Hanna said.

  “But without your nanites, you could get run over by a bus, fall off a building, catch the flu…”

  “Or catch Klaria,” Graham added, interrupting Arielle.

  “I’m pretty sure that if I caught Klaria, my nanites wouldn’t help me,” Hanna reasoned. “If they did, there wouldn’t be so many people dying right now.”

  “She’s got a point,” Graham admitted as he took a seat. “It wouldn’t be much of a virus if they did.” Graham looked at Hanna again. “But you’re still nuts. Why the hell do you want to help the ICTA? They’re killers, the darkest of them all, the original men in black, except that they don’t wear black.”

  “Think of the leads we might get out of it!” Hanna exclaimed.

  “I like the way you’re thinking,” Mister Tollison said.

  “Besides, I don’t think he wants to hurt me,” Hanna continued. “I think he needs me.”

  “Why do you think that?” Arielle asked.

  “Remember what he said before he signed off? ‘Hold on, it’s going to be a wild ride?’ That has to mean there’s more to come.”

  “Maybe he meant a wild ride for all of us,” Graham pointed out, “as in, the whole human race.”

  “Why would he want to kill the entire human race?” Hanna asked. “That would leave him all alone.”

  “You think a whacko who’s killing hundreds of thousands of people per hour is worried about being alone?” Arielle asked.

  “See? Nuts.” Graham said, chuckling.

  “Maybe you can ask him?” Mister Tollison said.

  “What?”

  Brent Tollison’s eyes lit up. “Oh my God, what if you could get an interview with this guy?”

  “What makes you think it’s a guy?” Arielle wondered.

  “Not a lot of female genocidal maniacs in the history books,” Graham reasoned.

  Arielle nodded in concession. “Why would he want to be interviewed?”

  “Most mass-murders want the attention, the notoriety. They want the world to know that they did it,” Brent explained. “Besides, this guy has got to have an agenda. Nobody tries to commit genocide without a reason.”

  “What kind of reason could he…” Hanna began.

  “I didn’t say a good reason,” Brent cut her off. “Fact is, Timmy Twister let you live for a reason. Sooner or later, he’s going to let you know what that reason was.”

  “And keeping my neuro-digital implant will make it easier for him,” Hanna noted.

  “Precisely.” Brent stroked his chin as he furrowed his brows in deep thought. “I agree. You have to get rid of your health nanites. In fact, everyone on your staff should.”

  “Why?” Arielle asked.

  “All three of you should be linked together at all times, so when he does make contact, you can spring into action in the hopes of turning it into something we can air, and be witnesses to Hanna’s feeds.”

  Both Arielle and Hanna looked confused.

  “Unknown wiped his messages as they came in,” Graham explained. “But he didn’t wipe them from mine, or from Arielle’s comms. The NCTA guys downloaded my message history. That’s why I took longer than everyone else. Had a few messages in there that required some explaining.”

  “That’s likely why all of you have been moved to the bottom of the suspect list,” Mister Beals told them as he entered the room.

  “We have?” Hanna asked.

  “Yes, and the warrants have been rescinded, for now,” Agent Oslo added as he and Agent Lund joined them. “I assume you’ve been discussing our proposal with your colleagues?”

  “Yes,” Hanna replied. “I want to do it. I want to help.”

  “Very well. I’ll contact our office and have a technical specialist come out and set up a dedicated link so that we see all of your messages.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. Since the suspect uses a different account with each message, there’s no way for us to filter only his messages.”
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br />   “I guess I’d better watch what I say.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Hanna,” Arielle reminded her.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then keep your implant off for few days until your nanites are all flushed from your system.”

  “How am I supposed to communicate with the rest of the world?”

  “Use the smart-comm,” Graham suggested.

  “You want me to manually type out everything? Are you kidding?” Hanna protested in disbelief.

  “It does have a voice mode, you know,” Arielle reminded her.

  “I’d have to speak out loud. Everyone would hear me.”

  “It’s only for a couple of days.”

  “It may not be necessary to turn off your implant,” Agent Oslo said. “If Unknown wanted to kill you, he probably already would have. It’s possible he still has plans for you.”

  “Wonderful,” Hanna said sarcastically. She picked up the smart-comm from the table and looked at it with disdain. “I’m hoping somebody here knows how to use this thing?”

  “Don’t worry,” Brent said. “You’ll be here most of the time for the next few days, doing the morning, noon, and evening netcasts. Once all the nanites are out, we’ll have you in the field at least once per day.”

  “There is one other thing,” Agent Oslo added. “Assuming that Unknown does have plans for you, once he realizes that he can no longer use your nanites against you, he may try to exert that same influence by controlling the nanites of others. People you care about.”

  “Everyone here, with the exception of Hanna, is having their implants downgraded,” Brent announced.

  “My parents,” Hanna realized. “They both have the newer implants.”

  “As do mine,” Arielle added, “and Sahmeed, and my sister and her family…”

  “Give us a list, and we’ll make sure all of their implants are downgraded as quickly as possible,” Agent Oslo promised.

  “If you can find them,” Hanna said, her tone turning somber.