by Hammond, Ray
As Jed watches, the locus of the newly emerged consciousness flits across the surface of its sphere, now above the North Pole, now over the Pacific Ocean. It favours the sunward side of the planet, now that it is denied the concentrated genesial power of reflected photons.
Jed returns to the Earth’s networks, rejoins his community and resumes his careful monitoring.
*
By early Sunday afternoon Calypso was gathering the energy to go upstairs and change yet again. The farewell ceremonies for the visitors would start in another hour.
‘Calypso?’ called Jed.
They had been relaxing in the basement poolhouse. Normally they would have been outside in the grounds, but today the gardens were open to the guests. Calypso was reading a novel, while Tommy was composing a tune on his DigiPad. The companion was on the lounger beside him.
‘What?’ asked Calypso, engrossed in her book.
‘May we go over now to see Tom in the Network Control Center, please?’
She glanced questioningly at the caterpillar.
‘I think he needs our help but can’t reach us,’ explained Jed. ‘You know all the trouble we’re having with communications.’
Calypso stared at the toy companion.
‘It’s urgent,’ pleaded Jed. ‘Let’s all go.’
*
‘It’s a set of dummy corporations – out of Switzerland,’ marvelled Furtrado. ‘They all include personnel from the World Bank itself as nominee directors. It looks like the UN’s behind it.’
Thomas Tye was looking haggard, despite his unnatural youth. He alone was seated, and standing anxiously around him in the Control Center were Furtrado, Raymond Liu, Zachary Zorzi, Theresa Keane and Connie, as well as a group of Solaris controllers and network engineers.
‘They’re very close to obtaining fifty per cent,’ warned Furtrado. ‘We’ve just got to suspend.’
Tye pondered, then shook his head. ‘That just allows a grey market in trades to build up. How much cash are we holding?’
‘Which currencies?’ asked Furtrado, as he sat down at a control panel.
‘US Dollars and euros only,’ said Tye.
The lawyer quickly interrogated the system ‘I can’t be totally accurate, but four, maybe five hundred million in the corporate accounts, perhaps four, five billion in the banks. We never keep too much.’
‘Go to cash on every major corporate asset we have,’ ordered Tye. ‘Dollars and euros only. Call in every line, get every finance VP in every subsidiary on it. Then sell all our other holdings outside of the core corporation, every investment we have. Don’t worry about discounts, just sell. Convert all T-euros and T-dollars to the reserve currencies, cash only. Deposit it here and in Singapore.’
‘None in our satellite deposit boxes?’ queried Furtrado, mystified.
‘None. Get on with it immediately and get all the bank presidents and the CFOs on it too. Then get the CIOs to stand by to dump data – all data. There will be nothing left for the bastards to take over.’
Furtrado stared at him. ‘The cash and data may not be ours to control any more, Tom. At least in strictly legal terms.’
‘Do it NOW!’ screamed Tye.
He swivelled round on Zorzi.
‘I want all fourteen Solaris stations back on full power delivery as fast as you can. Set minimum aperture focus, alignment between thirty and seventy degrees latitude north. How long will that take?’
Every Solaris station had recently been shut down, each panel of each sail reflector carefully angled to disperse the sun’s output away from Earth.
‘Three, maybe four hours,’ replied Zorzi, turning to the senior Solaris controller nearby for confirmation.
‘Get on with it, then,’ ordered Tye. ‘I want them back on line at full focus power as soon as possible.’
‘Tom.’ The voice was quiet, but firm. It was Raymond Liu. ‘If you turn the Solaris satellites back on now you’ll finish us. You’ll be hitting the busiest networks of all – those latitudes covering all of North America, Europe and Asia. We won’t have a network left that’s operational. Nor will anyone else. What’s more, I really think you risk inverting this planet’s polarity. We have no idea what that might mean.’
‘FUCK THEM!’ screamed Tye. ‘If they think they can just take us over, we’ll have a FUCKING MELTDOWN. WE’LL FRY THE NETWORKS. It will be strictly cash and tangible assets for all of us over the next few years. We’ll see who wins then. Liu, you go close down every traffic management system we’re running throughout the world. NOW! FUCK THEM. WE’LL FREEZE THEIR FUCKING ECONOMIES FOR THEM!’
There was a distraction at the entry level to the Control Center. Calypso and Tommy stood in the doorway, a security guard barring their access. They were both incongruously dressed in bathrobes and Tommy had Jed clenched firmly under his left arm.
‘Mrs Tye insists on talking to you, sir,’ called down the baffled security guard. Tye nodded his approval distractedly.
‘Daddy, what are you doing?’ Tommy came running down the aisle.
‘I’m really busy,’ snapped Tye. ‘Calypso, please take him back to the house.’
‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to regain control of the Phoebus Project, Tom, or the networks,’ announced Jed sharply, from under Tommy’s arm. ‘If you fry the networks, you’ll fry all my friends. I think you’d better find another option.’
Theresa Keane stepped forward, to Tom’s side.
‘Disable all companion connections. Go to sleep now, Jed,’ she ordered clearly.
‘I’m sorry, Professor,’ said Jed. ‘We can’t let you do that.’
She looked at Jed’s official owner, possessor of the all-important controlling voiceprint. ‘Tommy, please order Jed to disconnect from all networks and go to sleep.’
Tommy stared up at the professor, then at his father.
‘I think Jed knows best,’ he said.
*
Air Force One took off from Hope Island Spaceport at precisely seven thirty p.m., EST, an hour earlier than planned. It was followed a few minutes later by a second US government 787 carrying all the staff that would be required for the president’s imminent Chinese visit. Many other guests also opted for early departures before dusk began to fall over the eastern Caribbean. All planes were flown manually, all air traffic control was under human management, and it was undoubtedly safer to travel in daylight.
The remaining delegates gathered once again on the lawns in front of the mansion. A fly-past and then a firework display were scheduled to provide a magnificent finale. Thomas Tye was nowhere to be seen.
The jets came in from the west, out of the sinking sun, in a perfect V formation flying at their lowest possible subsonic speeds. The five craft of the Tye corporate flight zoomed low over the assembled watchers. All the pilots in Tye’s ‘squadron’ were ex-military and had been practising this manoeuvre for months just to get this highlight of the evening ceremony tuned to perfection.
The formation continued for a mile out to sea, executed a sharp left turn and, in perfect banked formation, flew northward, before turning west to complete their circuit of the island, flying over the assembled guests again.
Crossing the island for the second time, the formation started to accelerate rapidly, each plane emitting a trail of coloured smoke to create a wonderful plumed rainbow effect. Clearing the land once more, the pilots brought the noses of their aircraft up to begin an almost vertical climb in perfect formation, rapidly accelerating. The audience was enraptured. As had been calculated, the evening sun was reflected off the burnished aluminium of the wings as they climbed into a clear blue sky. At 7,000 feet they executed sonic booms simultaneously, the sound reaching their awed observers like a giant cannon salute. Then there was immediate silence.
The TV cameras lovingly captured the embraces, the farewells, and the elaborate waves, but network closures and intermittent temporary failures meant that the global audience was now greatly reduced. By now some parts of t
he world had no network access at all.
All that remained were the fireworks and, as darkness fell, those Tye Corporation staff now free of their duties gratefully joined those few guests who still lingered on the lawns.
Fifteen minutes after sunset eight water-cooled super-spot-lights pierced the darkness, reaching further into the night than the eye could see. They were located in two groups of four, three miles apart, their beams converging to create a giant proscenium of light above.
Half a mile off the coast thirty-eight giant steel barges provided platforms for the pyrotechnics created and programmed by the firework masters. To start their spectacle a series of automatically reloading mortars fired sixty giant starburst shells high over Hope Island with a roaring cannonade. Then followed sunbursts, sky waterfalls, microprocessor-controlled fire-writers drawing pictures in the night sky (including the encircled ‘T’ of the Corporation logo), a penultimate girandole of two hundred rockets – each microprocessor-controlled for the exact timing to create chrysanthemums, Saturn rings and aurora borealis displays. The exhibition climaxed with the final rolling discharge of an eighty-pound triple starburst mortar.
The last remaining guests clapped raggedly but enthusiastically, then turned to find their transport home. A dense haze of smoke covered the entire middle of the island.
On the private roof terrace of the great mansion, Calypso and Tommy hugged each other in their excitement at the display.
*
Jack Hendriksen set up in the bed and began hunting for something. Haley and he were snuggled in Haley’s stateroom, and only an hour earlier he had finally been able to hand over to Stella Witherspoon and go off duty.
‘What?’ asked Haley absently. She was choosing another of the non-fattening chocolates to complete her happiness. Jack’s concern for her feelings and their passionate lovemaking had, at least for the moment, banished her anxieties about his former relationship with ‘Miss World’. She had even recovered from the realization that she had lost her ‘exclusive’ about Tommy’s existence; she still had the true details about his strange origins to report, as well as loads of new inside material.
‘I’ve lost the damned remote,’ complained Jack, slipping his fingers under the bedcovers on her side.
‘That’s not it,’ laughed Haley.
Jack finally found the control and clicked the CNN icon at the bottom of the wall screen. It was a little after 9.30 p.m. As the channel changed, they were looking at a distinguished middle-aged presenter in mid-flow above the caption Breaking News.
‘. . . and claims that Thomas Tye himself authorized the experiments carried out in South Africa by Erasmus Inc. during that period.’ He broke off for a second, listening in his earpiece, then resumed eye contact with his audience.
‘For those of you just joining us for this live coverage, tomorrow’s New York Times carries a story in its first edition claiming that Thomas Tye, president of the Tye Corporation, is due to be charged with culpable manslaughter by the United Nations Human Rights Commission. It is suggested that he and one of his companies are directly responsible for a number of tragic deaths of young men and women in South Africa over recent years. The allegations state that these unfortunate teenagers were early versions of human clones produced years ago by a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tye Corporation.’
The presenter broke off and listened as new information reached him. ‘We now have some footage from South Africa to show you. But be warned, these images are disturbing.’
In a hospital ward an elderly white man with a very swollen head was being helped to sit up and take a sip of water. ‘The UN claims this patient is Reon Albertyn, a fifteen-year-old albino African who had degenerated into premature old age because of illegal human cloning carried out by Erasmus Inc. in the late nineteen-nineties and in subsequent years. He recently died, on the sixteenth of this month.’
The picture cut back to the anchorman, turning sideways to accept a sheaf of paper from a production assistant. After scanning his new script he turned back to the camera and a hastily prepared autocue.
‘This shocking allegation comes only hours after the marriage of Thomas Tye to a former Miss World, Doctor Calypso Browne. On the same day the world learned of the existence of Thomas Richmond Tye the Fourth, a seven-year-old boy living in seclusion on Hope Island. The Tye Corporation today issued a statement identifying the boy as Thomas Tye’s son, born to an unidentified surrogate mother.’
A new picture showed Thomas Tye, Calypso and Tommy stepping out onto the terrace of the Tye mansion immediately after the wedding ceremony. As they waved to the people on the lawn, the camera zoomed in on the boy’s beaming face.
‘This is, indeed, proving to be both a momentous and traumatic weekend for the Tye Corporation,’ continued the announcer. ‘We understand from United Nations sources that in addition to these charges of manslaughter, two hundred and ten charges of fraud and intellectual-property theft have also been filed against Thomas Tye and his Tye Corporation at the International Criminal Court of Justice in The Hague. Warrants will be issued tomorrow morning for the arrest of Mr Tye and thirty-seven of his senior executives.’
‘My God . . .’ breathed Haley.
A walkie-talkie squawked from a chair. Jack had issued them to all members of his security force when network disruption first started to become severe. He swung out of the bed and picked it up.
It was Pierre Pasquier, in the Spaceport control tower.
‘We’ve got incoming airplanes and sea-borne assets, Jack,’ he shouted. ‘We couldn’t see them before, the Argus network has been down. They’re only minutes away and I can’t get through to Tom’s house.’
Jack started tearing on his clothes as Haley stared at him open-mouthed, her chocolate still unchewed.
*
Raymond Liu had isolated most of the satellite and hybrid networks for the second time. Theresa and Robert were meanwhile attempting to isolate and delete the mutant males of the Anagenesis Experiment, but were receiving no response from the networks. Zorzi and the Solaris controllers were battling to find a way to regain control of the now uncommunicative Solaris stations.
When it came, the blast obliterated all images in the Control Center and the air was filled with red smoke. As the power and lighting flickered off there was the absolute silence that follows an explosion. Then the emergency lighting came on.
Liu clapped his palms over his ears to stop the ringing.
Then they were inside: a dozen black-suited, gas-masked, visored marines with laser-sighted automatic weapons and full battle-armour.
Raymond Liu turned and found himself staring into a gun barrel.
*
Jack tried to force maximum speed out of the slow-moving electric vehicle as he navigated a wooded gradient on the outer fringes of Tye’s estate. Steering with one hand, he tried continually to make contact with his security posts, with the cameras dotted around the island and with any of the several network addresses for Tom and others in the house. All he received was network static.
Thrusting his VideoMate back in his belt, he picked up the walkie-talkie again, although he knew he might now be out of range. He first tried calling Pierre in the control tower, then flicked to ‘Receive’.
‘Jack, we’ve got troops on the ground here . . .’ Gunfire sounded clearly in the background – then an explosion. ‘They’re over on the shuttle launch pads. They’re just firing blind . . .’
Jack was aware of a sudden great flash of light behind him. He swung the Volante around towards the southern end of the island. The sound of the blast was reaching him fast and loud over his walkie-talkie, but at a distance of ten miles the sound itself, when it finally arrived, was more like a deep low rumble. He watched a giant fireball rise slowly into the night sky.
‘They’ve hit a propellant tank,’ shouted the Frenchman. ‘One of the shuttles has exploded!’
Suddenly there came a short burst of gunfire much closer, from somewhere over the c
liff edge, out to sea. Jack restarted the vehicle, cleared the trees and headed across the lawn towards the access to Tom’s private beach. He stopped ten yards short of the cliff edge, threw himself down on the grass and crept towards the steel guard railings. Ducking his head underneath, he squirmed out onto six feet of unprotected clifftop and peered over the edge.
The landing party had shot out the security floodlights, but in the dim light he could still see four inflatable assault craft wallowing in the shallows, and thirty or more dark-clothed human figures moving quickly across the white sand. Two were about to ascend the tracks of the funicular railway, with climbing ropes slung over their shoulders. Jack calculated that all of them would arrive on the lawn within ten minutes.
His VideoMate started trilling. Slithering back underneath the fence, he jumped into the Volante and made a full U-turn towards the house before answering the call. It was from Stella Witherspoon, aboard an offshore patrol craft.
‘We’re in a firefight, Jack. We need help. We don’t know . . .’
The connection died and the hiss of static returned in his earpiece.
He strained at the plastic steering wheel, trying to urge more speed out of the vehicle. Then he was off the grass and onto the gravel drive that led up to the terrace extending in front of the main house. The high marbled reception hall was still brilliantly lit, so he guessed Tye’s cocktail party for his own personal and domestic staff was about to start. Just as the Volante rolled to a halt in front of the raised terrace he heard further explosions coming from the south.
Jack sprinted up the steps and slipped through an opening in the sliding glass doors leading into the reception hall. He noticed that Connie Law, Luc Bestion and half a dozen other house staff were already gathered. They were sipping champagne, oblivious to the drama unfolding outside. At that moment Tommy appeared, holding Calypso’s hand, but Tye himself was not yet to be seen. Chamber music, playing automatically from Tommy’s new keyboard, added an air of eighteenth-century elegance to the scene as the small group stood chatting about the weekend’s events.