by P. R. Adams
Rimes raised a hand. “Maybe you could provide an example of this subtle manipulation?”
“Sudden relationship changes,” Kleigshoen said, then she turned to cock an eyebrow at Rimes.
“That would not be subtle.” Imogen paced. “Minor changes in eating habits. Buying habits. Self-esteem. Perhaps someone would suddenly be averse to adding salt to a food they normally add salt to. If this device has the abilities we think it might, its first encroachment will likely be so small, even trained eyes could miss the changes. And so, we need to begin the bonding. Learn your comrades’ behavior, learn their thoughts and desires.” She cocked an eyebrow at Kleigshoen. “Their relationships.”
“Excuse me?” Banh waved a hand at Imogen. “Just how dramatic could the changes be, please? If we look for subtle, what would be the extreme expectation?”
“Were you aware that your comrade, Mr. Dunne, is a metacorporate spy?”
Banh laughed, and a second later everyone else joined him, but the laughter turned into shouts of alarm when Banh leapt at Dunne. Meyers and Gwambe restrained Banh before he could reach Dunne, who stumbled away from Banh with a curse.
Rimes held up his hands. “Okay. I get it. I think we all do. This thing can change how we see things, it can modify our beliefs. I think that’s a starting point. Pair up, start working with Yama and Ji to understand what they do to bond, then pair up your pairs. Learn what to watch for.”
“That was a crude display, but my hope is that it makes my point.” Imogen looked around the galley.
Banh suddenly relaxed and was nearly taken to the floor by Meyers and Gwambe. Meyers leaned into Banh’s ear, and his jaw dropped, then he nodded in understanding.
Banh turned to Dengler. “I am sorry.”
Dengler shrugged the apology off and nodded toward Imogen. “Her doing, not yours.”
"This—” Imogen nodded toward Banh. “This is why we fear this thing. If it is at all like the entity discovered on Sahara, it can affect even genies gifted with abilities such as mine. Your colonel described the thing on Sahara as extremely subtle and able to plan in the context of centuries or millennia. There is simply no way to protect against such influence.”
“Wait.” Kleigshoen stood. “I thought the whole point of getting together was to discuss how we could combat its influence.”
“There is no combatting it. We seek to counter it as we might.” Imogen walked past Banh, pausing to tilt her head as she looked at him. “It cannot be stopped, but we can use its tricks against it. We can plant a seed of our own that can survive its pernicious influence. The mind can be manipulated through subtle changes over time so the victim will never even suspect they were affected. We can craft an illusion within its illusion.”
Heads swiveled around, and Rimes felt the tension build in the air.
He recalled Imogen’s explanations about her plans now. Her idea wasn’t going to sit well with most of his team, especially Meyers. He lived through Sahara, but it changed him. Allowing Imogen to create a false reality meant trusting someone they hardly knew.
Meyers turned to Rimes. “I don’t think it’s—”
Rimes held up a hand. “We don’t have a choice, Lonny.” Rimes held up his hands. “All right, everyone, we can talk in terms of ‘maybe’ and ‘if,’ but the reality is we’ve already felt this thing’s influence. Just like Imogen said. Light years from Earth, it’s touching us. I managed to forget the details of all of this, and I just discussed it with Imogen a little while back. Maybe we’re a little more irritable or forgetful or sad, or maybe it’s the little things Imogen suggested. But the influence is there in all of us. It’s how the thing on Sahara worked, influencing everything for thousands of kilometers around, probably millions. If we don’t act now, we won’t be able to act at all. By the time we reach Earth it will be aware of us, and it will have already begun subverting our will.”
“Colonel Rimes is correct,” Imogen said.
“So what’s your illusion?” Meyers seemed resolved but unhappy.
“MetaConceptual.” Imogen smiled, showing her fangs. “We are agents of MetaConceptual. We are here, in its genesis, to ensure its success. I will plant the idea in each of you. It will be your reality. When you inevitably slip into this thing’s control, the key to your freedom will be MetaConceptual. The word, the image, even the thought. Any one of us can trigger another, not freeing them from the influence but sending them into the shared reality I will create. The end result will be the same: We will have the freedom to act in our own way, even while under this thing’s influence. We will know to seek each other out.”
“Why would this thing…how would it…” Credence frowned. “Wouldn’t it be able to sense this, just overwrite the idea?”
Imogen seemed to sniff the air as she considered Credence for a moment. “That is always possible. There is no way to guarantee we can slip by undetected or that our reality will work within its reality. There are never any guarantees with the human mind.” Imogen bowed toward Rimes. “Or the genie mind. This is, however, our best opportunity for success.”
Rimes could feel the skepticism of the humans like a wave of heat. “To show you my belief in this approach, I’ll be the first to undergo the process. Watch me. Watch what she does. When it’s over, make up your own mind. You can’t go to Earth without this, though. It’s as simple as that.”
Imogen took his hand and guided him to the front table and sat him across from her. She locked eyes with him.
“Are you ready, Colonel Rimes?”
He looked into Imogen’s eyes, momentarily worried by their alienness. He’d found greater humanity in her mother—Andrea—than he’d known in many humans. He wondered how she would feel about her daughter.
Proud. Like me of my boys.
“I’m ready.”
“Follow me on this journey, then.”
Rimes relaxed, and his world slid away. As it did, he had the vaguest awareness of his own relief.
35
21 May, 2174. The Drake.
* * *
Rimes shivered in the chill that had settled deep in the Drake’s bridge. He sucked in the air, which had gone dead in the last few hours. All around him, video feeds from the Drake’s hull cameras filled the bridge displays with horrifying images of the space between the Drake and Earth: cratered and darkened ship hulls, molten and fragmented ship components, and the humans who had died aboard those ships. The Drake’s gravitic field deflected even the larger pieces, but Ji was still doing his best to zigzag around the worst of it.
“How many do you think?” Kleigshoen asked from behind Rimes. “People.”
“People?” Rimes took in the scale of destruction, which spread in smaller pockets from the outer parts of the system to the massive debris field where they were now. A few months ago I would have instinctively said none. “Twenty? Thirty thousand? It could be three times that, easily. We have no idea how many ships limped away or were blasted into dust. I can’t even guess how much this cost.”
“It doesn’t even feel…”
“Sane?” Rimes snorted. “I thought declaring war against us was insane. Fighting each other? Even if you’re just some cold-blooded financial analyst sitting in an orbital light years away, you’d think the expense would be too great to justify. Last estimate I saw was well over three hundred vessels, everything from gunships up to some of those transports.”
"Eighteen minutes to orbit,” Ji called from her console.
Someone coughed from the open hatch. Rimes turned, saw Gwambe, Banh, and Trang standing there.
Gwambe seemed determined not to look at the displays. “Kit is stowed in Yama’s shuttle, Colonel.”
“Let’s get people loaded up.” Rimes gave the displays a final look, then headed out the hatch for the shuttle bay.
Meyers met them at the bottom of the steps. “Ready?”
Rimes watched Yama from the top of the steps. He seemed absorbed in the most detailed inspection of a shuttle Rimes had
ever seen, hand drifting over each panel. Credence trailed Yama, eyes wide, mouth open.
“Guess it’s been a while since she’s done something on her feet instead of her back,” Kleigshoen said so that only Rimes could hear her.
Rimes closed his eyes, refusing to take the bait.
“Colonel?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” Rimes descended the steps, clapped Meyers on the shoulder, then waved Barlowe and Meyers aboard.
Imogen watched them from beyond the open airlock doors, then headed out and joined Yama on his inspection.
“This is it,” Kleigshoen said from behind Rimes. “We’re going to do this.”
Rimes turned to look at her. She was wearing her jeans and a simple, black shirt. Somehow, she’d managed to affect a fashionable and attractive look out of it. She hadn’t regained the weight she’d lost in the war. She looked drained, frightened, resigned. He thought he could see a hint of relief in her tired eyes.
“Yeah. It’s time.”
He watched her climb the ramp into the airlock, and after a few seconds acknowledged the alien sense of fear he was feeling. He didn’t care for it. In the past, he might have felt anxiety or fear of failure, but never fear of the enemy. And since Molly’s death, all he had felt in combat was certainty and fury.
Five months, Molly. Is that long enough for the wounds to heal? Can it be right I’ve forgiven them?
As if reading his mind Credence hooked an arm around him and leaned her head against his chest. He could almost hear her reminding him that he had to let his family go, let them find peace.
Kleigshoen paused in the airlock and shifted her backpack. Her brow wrinkled, and she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Jack?”
“We have a duty.” He didn’t feel the least bit convinced about the duty or about his ability to execute it. He looked at his outfit—a jumpsuit with padded joints over a black T-shirt and knee-length shorts—and wondered if his identity might be so tightly tied to his uniform that he couldn’t succeed without it. History certainly had no shortage of those driven to great and terrible things by their ideology, and the uniform represented a great deal to him, possibly enough to qualify as an ideology.
“If we’re going to do this, we’re going to need someone to show us the way.” Kleigshoen glared at Credence menacingly, then looked back at him, her eyes once again full of concern. “Are you focused on the right thing?”
Rimes looked down at Credence. She wore a simple jeans and shirt outfit not too dissimilar from Kleigshoen’s. Credence had a small travel bag thrown over her shoulder. With her hair brushed out and a modest application of makeup, Rimes found her truly attractive for the first time. She smiled nervously.
“I was a good soldier when I had Molly, Dana.”
Kleigshoen descended the ramp and pulled him away from Credence. “Look, Jack, I admit I’m jealous. You’ve always been a decent, stand-up guy. You’re handsome and sweet, and I wouldn’t trust anyone else at my back. At least I understood what you saw in Molly. I never saw you falling for a frumpy scientist. She’s just…” Kleigshoen bowed her head and sighed.
“We’re not taking any vows.” Rimes felt a sense of déjà vu. “We’ll all be fine. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“You’ve changed.”
“People change. After everything we’ve been through, I think we all have.”
Kleigshoen looked up, and he saw for the first time just how badly everything had aged her. She was still attractive enough, but in the hangar bay’s harsh light, he could see hints of puckering in her arms and wrinkles around her eyes and the corner of her mouth. He thought back to Imogen’s words in the galley and considered the idea of relative reality.
Have I never really noticed all that before, or are they part of this new reality? Maybe that thing is already influencing me, casting everything I believe in a different light?
“Excuse me,” Rimes said to the women, then made his way over to Brozek, who was at the hangar bay’s fore end. He was sitting on a large cargo crate, feet kicking, chest rapidly rising and falling, pale eyes distant, unfocused. He still wore the uniform he’d been given on the Valdez an eternity before, even though it was a terrible fit. When Rimes stopped a meter away Brozek looked down and blinked as if suddenly aware of a new presence. He smiled weakly.
“I’m not going to make the interview,” Brozek said with a sad laugh. “No need to worry about troubling questions now.”
Rimes returned the smile. “Interview?”
“I thought I told you?” Brozek’s eyes became unfocused again, looking past the shuttles. “Another Earth-like world. We’re finding so many out there now. Two-month trip. One-year gig. It’s exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for when I finished up on Sahara. And the research team? Twice the size. More variety. I told you how hard it was on Sahara? One bad move, and you could go weeks without someone to sleep with. It was a bad situation. Engineers and scientists, we make terrible companions. The egos and needs, you see.” He looked at Rimes and offered a pained smile that revealed dry teeth and pale, receding gums.
“I thought you and Ladell were getting along?”
“Ladell is a good man. Brilliant. But he is…what is the word? A wandering spirit? Like a gypsy? He is ready to move on.”
“Oh.” Did I forget, or is this the thing’s influence? Rimes looked hard at Brozek and knew it was the influence. “You’re going to stay up here?”
“I need to get some sleep. I’m just so tired. All the killing, all the dying, such a toll. I don’t have the energy to hate anymore.”
“I know.” He gently patted Brozek’s leg, felt the thin layer of muscle over bone. “We’re all going to sleep when this is over. Dariusz, what we talked about a bit back…do you remember?”
Brozek frowned. “We talked about…the war, Colonel?”
“Ending the war, yes. Remember?”
“You’ll never end the war.” Brozek shook his head weakly. His sunken eyes looked down at Rimes, momentarily intense. “The only way to end the fighting is to walk away. This interview, it’s my chance. I can start over again and just forget about the pain.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And what I did.”
“Get some rest. And remember, you never did anything. I did it all. You have no guilt in this, not in any of it.” Rimes saw Imogen approaching. He headed toward her, stopping when Brozek called after him. Rimes turned.
Brozek lowered himself from the cargo crate and staggered toward Rimes, rubbing at his shins, watching Imogen’s approach. “What we talked about? It’s ready.” He slipped Rimes a small control device. “Exactly as you requested. When you need it, just signal. It will come, and it will be…beautiful. But it’s the last thing I build like this.” He turned and shuffled from the hangar bay, a hint of confidence in his stride.
Imogen stopped in front of Rimes. “Ten minutes.” Her eyes drifted to Brozek’s retreating form, then to the stragglers now making their way to the shuttles. “Already, the effects are being felt.”
“Yes. It’s a big gamble, isn’t it?”
Imogen looked at Rimes intently, then she sniffed the air. “You can make it much less risky. I can’t get a sense of you, not as I could before. Are you here?”
“Where else would I be?”
Imogen considered him for a moment more, then made a satisfied, almost purring sound. “Then we will succeed. You said it when I first met you, and it’s still true. You’ve always had it within you, but at times I admit my faith has been challenged.”
Rimes blushed. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to have faith in anybody, least of all me. I can barely recall our first meeting, and I definitely can’t recall saying we would succeed. I’ve disappointed a lot of folks over the years.”
Imogen considered Yama’s shuttle, then trailed Ji as he headed for the other shuttle. “We all have disappointments within us. Dwelling on our failings serves no purpose. You are ready to lead again?”
Rimes paused a moment, unsure if he actually was ready to lead again. Somewhere deep inside of him Kwon rumbled, and a quiet tremor worked its way through Rimes’s core. He walked to Yama’s shuttle, patiently helped Dengler and Dunne aboard, then followed them, taking the seat behind Yama.
Moments passed as Yama and Ji chatted. The shuttle airlock sealed, and Rimes nodded at his comrades—Banh and Dunne, dressed casually; Dengler, a nurse on his way to work; Gwambe, a sharply dressed businessman; Trang, a student who’d already seen too much in his life. They were chatting about the usual things: rendezvous points, weapons caches, communications alternatives. Finally, the hangar bay cycled, and the shuttle lifted off. Yama opened communications with orbital operators, gaining clearance for Atlanta. Under whatever reality the device had put into place on Earth, neither the stolen shuttles nor the Drake's presence in orbit raised alarms.
As the shuttles dropped into the atmosphere, Rimes connected to the available assortment of free news feeds. Every few seconds he switched between the shuttles’ cameras and the most promising of the news feeds. The skies were surprisingly clear of traffic, allowing him to split most of his time between the news feeds and listening to his comrades.
The news feeds were depressing, not because they were filled with the sort of agitated and exasperated reporting that was so common to the open channels, but because they weren’t. Each feed he watched had almost the exact same computer-generated set, the same chemically and surgically enhanced newsreaders, all repeating the same fluff almost verbatim. The presentations were lifeless, insipid, and always adorned with metacorporate imagery.
“…manufacturing on Earth simply makes no sense…”
“…research from several metacorporations point to reduced labor needs, nearly completely replacing humans with automation and freeing us to focus on more valuable pursuits…”