Callisto Deception

by John Read

  Howard pointed at the screen. “Cal-Net Social,” he said, and a stream of videos and images scrolled along the side of the screen.

  Most of the news was of us: images of our boat as seen from shore, pictures of the airplanes. I read the captions to myself:

  Who are these people?

  Is this really the CA?

  Clydesdale under attack!

  “Get that message out before we sink!” Nash yelled.

  The screen to my left showed the starboard side of the vessel. Two barges filled with soldiers approached. On our deck, Serene loaded a grenade into her launcher and fired at the first boat. The grenade landed inside the barge and exploded, obliterating its occupants. She reloaded and hit the second boat although it swerved to avoid the projectile. She reloaded and fired again. The grenade hit the side of the boat, and exploded centimeters below the surface. The barge lifted out of the water, flipping onto its side.

  “We’re ready, when you are,” Kevin said.

  “Hit it,” I said.

  Kevin used a two-fingered gesture to start the broadcast. A red circle appeared in the bottom corner of the screen.

  “Are we live?” Amelia said. Kevin nodded the affirmative.

  I said, “If anyone can hear us, we are not your enemy. We’re representatives from NASA. My name is John Orville, this is Amelia, and Kevin. Please, stop firing on this boat. I repeat, we are representatives from NASA.”

  “Please listen,” Amelia said. “There was no Doomsday, and you are being lied to. Please, if you can hear this, stop firing on H3’s boat.”

  “I’m from the CDF,” Howard said. “I can confirm their story. These people are not from the Alliance.”

  “They’re still shooting at us!” Nash yelled from up top.

  Nash unloaded a clip onto the dock; several of the soldiers were hit, and three of them tumbled into the water.

  “They don’t mean to hurt anyone,” Howard yelled at the screen, tears streaming from his eyes. He glanced to the left as several CDF soldiers on the dock took bullets to their chests. “They’re fighting to defend themselves!”

  “Keep talking,” Amelia suggested. “Give it a few minutes for word to spread.”

  “Please,” I begged, “please tell the soldiers to stand down.”

  Howard said to the screen, “It’s self-defense, I swear.”

  I scanned the security feeds. Bullets had torn away the gunwales, and were beginning to chew up the deck. Serene leaned out from behind the wall and fired several shots. A grenade landed on deck, and she dove for cover. It exploded, and bits of ceiling rained down into H3’s office.

  “It’s getting hot up here,” Nash yelled. Two more barges approached the yacht as it drifted farther from shore. Nash fired at the first boat, but as he did, the second barge banked left. Several CFD soldiers rose from behind the gunwale and opened fire. Nash took multiple shots to the torso and one to the head. His body collapsed and fell over the side.

  “Nash is down,” Serene yelled, and then unloaded a clip into the barge, hitting several of its occupants. The barge banked, out of control, swerving towards the yacht. “Fire in the hole,” Serene yelled, tossing a grenade over the side, into the boat.

  The barge exploded, its shell careening into the side of the yacht, tearing a hole in the hull above the waterline.

  That was the last of the CFD barges. As our boat floated away from shore, there was a relative silence and only the fire from shore continued.

  As I turned back to the holovision, a chill ran through me.

  H3 sat in the chair behind us. I turned around, ready to strike, but in the physical world, the chair was empty. H3’s avatar stood, and his voice resonated through the room’s speakers.

  “Well hello gentlemen, and lady. It’s been a while.” H3 walked toward my image on the display. He put his augmented arm around my back. I couldn’t feel it, but the hairs on my back rose as if I’d acquired a static charge.

  “Kevin, what’s happening?” Amelia said.

  “I don’t know,” Kevin said, concentrated on the screen, waving through menus. “This doesn’t make sense; he can’t be ...”

  “May I be the first to officially welcome you to Callisto,” H3 said. “Unfortunately, your message on Cal-Net will not be broadcast today.”

  “Oh, shit,” Kevin said.

  “What’s going on, Kevin?” I said, but he just shook his head.

  A red notification flashed in the corner of the screen. I read, “Inappropriate content detected.” Our message hadn’t sent.

  29

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” I said. “If that message didn’t transmit, those soldiers will keep shooting until there’s nothing left of this ship!”

  “Not so fast, John,” H3 said.

  Tayler ran into the room. “We’re clear of shore, and they seem to be out of boats,” he said. “But they’ll have a 20-millimeter gun online in about sixty seconds that will tear this boat to shreds.

  Avro followed him in, slinging his rifle back over his shoulder.

  “Hello Avro,” H3 said. “Who’s your friend?”

  Avro’s skin went white, and he looked at Tayler.

  “What the hell is going on?” Tayler said, looking at the holovision and seeing H3 superimposed onto the room.

  “It’s over for you, H3,” I said. “We’ll get a message out.”

  “You must have undergone some serious training, John,” H3 said. “Last time we met, you were just an engineer. Unfortunately for you, there’s one lesson it seems you haven’t learned.”

  “And what the hell is that?” I said.

  “Always have an ace in the hole.”

  Serene came down the stairs with gun drawn. Something had changed about her face and eyes. Perhaps it was from adrenaline, a heightened sense of awareness. She looked like a caged animal, planning to claw free past her keeper.

  “Serene, don’t move!” Tayler yelled, and reached for his side arm.

  Serene pulled the trigger, firing three rounds into Commander Tayler. Two of them hit his chest, and the third struck him in the center of his neck. He fell to the floor, his gun clattering beside him. Serene walked over and kicked it away.

  “Don’t move,” she said. Blood dripped from minor cuts on her face. Her stolen CDF tunic was slashed in several places, but her wounds looked minor and she didn’t seem to be affected by pain. “Put your hands on the back of your heads.”

  She turned to Howard. “I’m sorry, but it’s for the good of the colony,” she said, and put a bullet in his head. He collapsed on the ground.

  “Serene, why?” I said.

  “She’s working for H3!” Kevin said.

  Serine pulled a second pistol from a holster. With one gun pointed at us, she pointed the second at the holovision.

  “I need to talk to them, privately,” Serene said to the holovision.

  H3 put up a hand to protest. “Now, Serene, I need …” Serene fired one round into the projector and another into the camera.

  “Oh my God,” Amelia said. “You’re a fucking Doomsdayer!”

  Serene didn’t respond.

  “H3 will kill us if you turn us in!” I said. “No matter what happens, we’re dead.”

  “I like you guys,” she said. “And John, I like you a lot. Do exactly as I say and I can keep you alive.”

  “Why, just, why?” I said.

  Serene motioned with her gun. “The Doomsdayers on Earth made sure I would be on any mission to Callisto. The plan was to make sure when we arrived, the residents of Callisto would believe we were from the Communist Alliance.”

  “That’s why you killed all those people,” I said.

  “It had to be this way,” Serene said. “This settlement is everything to us. It is Utopia.”

  “That means you can never let us leave,” Amelia said.

  “The soldiers are going to come and take you away now. Throw anything with a NASA logo into the recycolizer.” She pointed to the unit located
near H3’s desk. “Do it.”

  We ripped the Velcro NASA logos from our gear, throwing them into the machine that would instantly melt them down for filament.

  “John, in the first aid kit, get the surgical anesthetic.”

  “You don’t have to …” I began.

  “Do it now, or when those solider arrive, I will have to kill you. The rest of you, lie down,” she said. I looked in the bag and pulled out a handful of syringes.

  Amelia scowled, giving Serene a look that said, Fuck you.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We can figure this out. We can’t do anything if we’re dead.”

  The four of us went down to our knees, and lay on the floor, hands still over our heads.

  I pulled the safety tip off the first syringe, injecting Amelia just above the collar. She let out a silent scream. I lowered her to the floor as the drug reached her brain. Avro went next, followed by Kevin.

  There was a pause. I turned and placed my hands on H3’s desk. “Just fucking do it,” I said.

  “You’ll be okay,” Serene said. “H3 needs you. We need you. Whatever happens, I hope we can be friends again someday.” I felt the prick, and the liquid shooting into my neck.

  “Unlikely,” I said, but as I slipped into unconsciousness I heard one last thing.

  “Henry, this is Serene. Come get them.”

  From the top of the hill, Marie watched as a boat pulled up to H3’s crippled yacht. A minute later, CDF soldiers hauled several bodies from the charred ship. When the boat moved away, there was an explosion and H3’s boat sank beneath the surface. Marie had been on that boat this morning. What would have happened if we hadn’t evacuated? she thought with a chill. The faces of her children flared briefly in her mind; the notion of them being orphans was unbearable.

  She checked her watch, reading a Cal-Net notification, and letting out a sigh of relief. The immediate threat to the colony had been eliminated. She went inside the administration building. H3’s door was locked so she knocked.

  He came to the door and let her in.

  “Have you heard?” Marie said.

  “Oh yes,” H3 said. “I’ve been following the counter attack on my headset.”

  “I’ve never seen you use VR,” Marie said.

  “I pulled this universal VR set from my spaceship and had a local tech network it into Cal-Net Social. It’s kind of fun. You should try it someday.”

  “I’ve had enough virtual reality, thank you very much.”

  H3 turned on his room’s holovision, now one of the only remaining units in the colony. They watched as reporters interviewed people by the shore. Other representatives from the council were giving statements. “This could be good for us, you know,” H3 said.

  “How’s that?” Marie asked.

  “When the Alliance realizes its reconnaissance team won’t be coming back, it’ll send another. But next time, it won’t be so easy to fight them off.”

  “How is that in any way good?” Marie said.

  “Unification, Marie,” H3 said. “It will unite our colony like nothing has before. We’ll go into full production of the spaceships, and we’ll reactivate the universal constructor, doubling the size of the colony.”

  “And will this activity include a mission back to Earth?”

  “Construction of the ship building facility has already begun. And, once we’re confident we can match the firepower of the Alliance, well, I’m sure we’ll be able to spare a ship for a reconnaissance mission to Earth.”

  There was a knock at the door. Marie turned and opened it, without waiting for H3’s permission.

  It was Hoshi.

  “Hello, Marie,” Hoshi said, and Marie nodded. Hoshi continued, “The army was a good idea after all. I wanted to thank you personally, but—” she said.

  “Do you have the survivors in custody?” H3 said.

  “We should have wiped them out!” Hoshi voice rose.

  “They are prisoners of war,” H3 said. “And we will not be conducting executions on my watch.”

  “Survivors?” Marie said. “I only saw bodies carried out.”

  Hoshi explained, “We killed several of the attackers, but some survived.”

  “What will you do with them?” Marie asked.

  H3 said, “We’ll be holding them in the Mount Everest. Locking them in VR. It will keep them sane until the war is over and we can send them back to wherever they came from.”

  “They came from Mars,” Marie said. “Why do you sound like you don’t know?”

  “Mars, of course,” H3 said.

  “I want to talk with them,” Marie said.

  H3 looked at Marie, then back at Hoshi. “No one goes near the prisoners. Not even Hoshi or I. The Alliance has unmatched powers of persuasion, and we don’t want anyone to become … tainted.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to go near them,” Marie said. “I just want to ask them some questions. Besides you, these are the only people who didn’t come on the convoy. They might have information about Earth.”

  Hoshi looked at H3. “She’s right, someone should conduct an interrogation.”

  “I’ll do it,” H3 said. “I’ve met the CA face to face, and I believe I am the least corruptible.”

  “Hand me your visor.” Hoshi said. H3 did as he was told. Hoshi put the visor up to her face, and typed a series of commands into the air, before handing the visor back to H3. Hoshi said, “I’ve given your visor permission to enter the Calli program. You’re the only one inside the Ring with access to virtual reality. Let’s keep it that way.”

  30

  I regained consciousness, but kept my eyes closed. Sunlight shone on the bed, and I pulled the blankets over my head. What happened last night? I asked myself, assuming I had been drinking, and this was the worst hangover in the world. Then I remembered. I opened my eyes, and threw off the bed sheets. The room was bright and cheery; the sun was shining through an open window, and I could hear birds chirping in the trees. I sat up, throwing my feet over the side of the bed. My head ached, but I managed to stand and walk toward the mirror. The man I saw in my refection wore shorts and a Hawaiian T-shirt.

  “Shit,” I said.

  There was yelling outside the door. “John?” It sounded like Kevin.

  I walked outside, finding myself on the second story balcony overlooking a pavilion with a stone fountain in the center. People walked around in normal clothes, going in and out of shops. Something was odd about the way they moved. It was as if they were all looking for something.

  Kevin and Avro walked along the balcony toward me. Kevin was wearing his shirt with the F-35s. Avro wore a Hawaiian shirt, like me.

  “Is everyone okay?” I said, walking up to Kevin.

  “We’re in VR,” Kevin said.

  “Yeah, I got that,” I said.

  “We’re locked in VR,” he said. “It’s a prison.”

  Figures, I thought. I reached to my back, feeling around the port that held my body. I checked for the place where I figured the release would be. I found it, but the mechanism would not compress. I reached to my face, attempting to lift the glasses, but my hand couldn’t get close enough. I must have been wearing a helmet.

  Amelia burst through a door and stumbled into the light, using a hand to block the sun.

  “What’s going on?” she said. “Where the hell are we?”

  “We’re in VR,” I said. “Based on the fact that they have our avatars, and that we’re wearing what we wore in the Hawaii program, I’d say they have our ships.”

  “God dammit!” she said. Avro walked over and gave her a hug.

  A spiral staircase descended from the far side and we walked down into the pavilion.

  “It’s the program Howard mentioned,” Kevin said, “the one they used on the spaceships. These people are Turings.”

  “So, we’re the only real people,” Amelia said. “That’s creepy.”

  “Howard never mentioned Turing computers,” I said. A couple walked past
holding hands. Two women approached each other from opposite directions; they hugged when they met, and held the embrace.

  A teenaged girl sat beside the fountain, crying. She wore jeans, and a bright, long sleeved shirt.

  “There’s something very strange about this,” Amelia said, and walked over to the girl. She sat down beside her on the ledge.

  “What’s your name?” Amelia said.

  “Tanya,” the girl answered.

  “Tanya, I’m Amelia. Can you tell me what the matter is?” Amelia said. We sat down on the ledge and pretended not to eavesdrop.

  “I don’t understand,” said the girl. “Don’t you know?”

  “No, we’ve been,” Amelia paused, “away.”

  “There was pain,” the girl said. “I couldn’t breathe, no one could. I thought I was going to die. Our friends, from the other ships, they just … disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?” Amelia said.

  “I mean disappeared!” the girl said. “You can’t just disappear like that. You can’t just go back and leave us here!”

  “Go back to where?” Amelia said.

  “Back to reality, to the ship of course,” the girl said. “You are from the Klondike, right?”

  “Ah, yeah, we’re from the Klondike,” Kevin said, gabbing Amelia’s arm. “Come on. We need to go.”

  “Don’t go, please, don’t go,” Tanya said. “My family is dead and I have no friends.”

  “Stay here, okay?” Amelia said. “I’ll be back.”

  The girl started to cry and held Amelia’s arm.

  Kevin turned to Tanya, looking her in the eye. “You are a Turing Computer – reset code four hundred and two.”

  “Oh, okay.” Tanya smiled and immediately stopped crying.

  “That was weird,” Amelia said.

  “It’s a reset button,” Kevin explained. He grabbed Amelia by the arm. “We need to talk.”

  We walked away from the pavilion and out into the main street that led down to the harbor. The VR world was almost identical to the Callisto colony, but with subtle differences. The dock in this version of Calli was made of concrete, in “real Callisto” it was made of wood, and in this version, there were more sailboats than speed boats.