The Matron’s laughter faded into a malevolent sneer as she remembered how eagerly each member of the Board of Trustees had taken their respective bait. It's not that they were corrupt as a whole, or that they were individually incompetent, but their party affiliations were like playbooks as to how they could be manipulated. Officially, they still believed in the pursuit of Natural Order, but they were more easily influenced by political entanglements and economic incentives than any morals or virtue. For too long, Earth’s Board of Trustees had refused to admit that Natural Order could not be sustained inside a hermetically sealed bubble, which is precisely why the Matron had taken matters into her own hands.
Despite the vast emptiness of space, every viable galaxy in the known universe was once again teaming with life, and aside from there on Earth, life was cheap. People could now create computerized versions of their minds, which USi branded as Souls, and live indefinitely on USinet while purchasing incarnations on as many planets as they can afford. There were entire solar systems dedicated to every bizarre perversion; garden planets whose occupants could live forever in lust, and giant colonies at war where soldiers constantly respawned to fuel man’s gluttony for destruction. Even though Reconstruction brought about immense diversity, those planets were all connected by instant communication devices and USinet, making it difficult to distinguish any one part from another. In some ways, the amalgamous blob of civilization was good for Natural Order, but competition had grown stagnant, and the universe needed a jumpstart.
Long before the Matron’s reign on Earth had begun, the planet’s natural core failed and had been replaced with a cadre of machines. Without them, the planet would have been nothing but a frozen rock, but the artificial system’s ancillary capabilities posed a significant threat to the planet’s purity. Since she had taken office, the Matron had repeatedly requested to have all non-essential equipment removed, knowing that she would be refused because the cost of doing so was unreasonable. At the same time, she had been allowing aspiring criminals access to the machinery to boost their petty operations.
Not only did enabling Earth’s black market help the Matron control it, the real payoff came only a decade or so ago when she finally informed the Board of Trustees that the core had been co-opted by smugglers. Like clockwork, they started pointing fingers and trying to avoid personal culpability. Even though his had been one of the loudest voices refusing to fill in the tunnels, Minister Portsmith lectured them about how countless companies would have done the work for the publicity that came with it, then Minister Beverly shamed everyone for allowing their decision-making to be motivated by finance. Then, as he had done so many times over the years, reliable Minister Jacoby reintroduced the Marshal program. Some of the more conservative members still put up a little resistance because the Marshals represented an unprecedented level of genetic sophistication, but ultimately, the resolution passed.
Near ready to burst with joy, the Matron bent her knees, stretched out her arms and launched herself into a backwards swan dive. Sailing through the air with eyes closed and crashing into her chair, her bare back hit the genuine leather upholstery with a sound that was somewhere between a smack and a plop. Loose folds of her skin stuck to the cushion, and the Matron sank down, suspended inside the semisolid sack of bones that she was. Leaning forward, she fell to the floor and rolled with laughter as she replayed the day’s many victories in her head.
Chapter Eight
Officer Brennan
Officer Brennan hadn’t changed much over the years, which was impressive considering he was one of Earth’s most senior government employees. Not only was he one of the few original Peacekeepers still in service, he had also been an unofficial poster boy for the entire Gort program. Despite not having the fancy energy weapons or field manipulators that made the other heroes of his day so popular, children all over the universe had posters of him on their bedroom walls. At one point in time, there had been thousands of legitimate channels dedicated to Earth’s premiere officer, each with legions of subscribers, but revisions to the embargo made commercial viewership of humanity’s homeworld so expensive that it was effectively outlawed.
The Board of Trustees had done a lot to address unauthorized streaming of the holy planet, but no matter how sophisticated the frequency dampeners and information barricades became, they would never be able to block everything. Where there was a will, there was a way, and people would be forever willing to shell out big bucks for even simple glimpses of Earth. Brennan still had a decent cult following, but alongside the glory of the Reconstruction Era, his popularity had faded. Directly after the Great Liberation, the Gort program had been revived and repurposed, with the Peacekeeper initiative being designed specifically to help with race-relations. Although they were engineered using machine reparation technology, the physically non-threatening, humanoid law enforcement officers were supposed to bridge the gap between man and machine.
Genetically speaking, Peacekeepers were Old Earth human, but people still didn’t trust them at first. All across the universe, they were stoned in the streets simply for their association with Gort. They killed their share of bad guys, but their willingness to die for noble causes is what finally won humanity’s trust. In many ways, Peacekeepers had been an emotional punching bag for the entire species, and the sacrifices made by martyred officers were now widely acknowledged and honored.
Back when the Board of Trustees was first considering bringing the Peacekeeper program to Earth, the only real obstacle had been their pre-education. At the time, anything that required Computer-Brain interfacing was strictly taboo, but with the faithful law officers paving the way, all Earthside USi employees now had extensive experience implanted before they were born. As instrumental as they had been in breaching technological barriers, however, Officer Brennan’s lifetimes of service had hastened his own obsolescence. Every time a Peacekeeper killed a bad guy or rescued a baby, the universe became better acclimated to the idea of friendly machines. It had only taken a few thousand years before people no longer needed heroes that looked like them, and that’s where the Marshals came in.
Unlike Peacekeepers, or the Athena-class model, a true USi Marshal had no reason to blend in. They could manifest themselves into whatever form was best suited for the situation, and most people imagined them as the coordinated murmurations of liquid metal that had decimated the human resistance during the Machine Wars. The Werbian fleet had torn through planets and warships without seeming to notice, which is why the Marshals hadn’t become popular until the machine race was ancient history. But when Gort stopped promoting images of the Peacekeepers so they could focus more on the amorphous Marshals, Brennan considered it proof of a job well done.
Through updates to his military training, Officer Brennan had been privileged enough to watch most of the Marshals’ greatest battles, and he had become a pretty big fan. Despite his own celebrity status, the Peacekeeper was more than a little starstruck when the very first Athena-class Marshal introduced herself. She had uncovered a chain of illegal sweatshops out in a remote chunk of desert that happened to be within his jurisdiction. Migrant labor camps weren’t uncommon, usually just people trying to save on manufacturing costs or duplicate inventory, but the Marshal suspected that they were part of a much larger operation.
Together, they were able to trace the ring back to a man who called himself Mister Morton. Officer Brennan had never even heard the villain’s name before, but he was moving a staggering amount of goods offworld. His base of operations was out of the clock tower in Mechanicsburg, which was also within his jurisdiction. It was considered a minor city because of its lack of technological sophistication, but in terms of sprawl, it was massive, so it wasn’t surprising that so much crime had been hidden there. Still, the veteran Peacekeeper couldn’t help but feel guilty. He remembered a time when the thought of a lone officer being responsible for an entire city would have been laughable, but Brennan was now responsible for Mechanicsburg, three more m
inor cities, over two dozen labor towns, and an enormous tract of land that was inhabited by multiple Dakota tribes and innumerable animal herds.
Granted, crime had settled down over time, but Officer Brennan resented Peacekeeper forces being spread so thin. And he hadn’t realized it until the first Marshal had arrived, but he had missed feeling useful. He still had to deal with the occasional mutant horde and poaching would always be a problem, but months could go by without him seeing any real action. A typical day usually consisted of a long drive across an empty desert to file a report on suspicious activity that had been washed clean by the wind and sand long before he arrived.
Partnering up with the Marshal was like having fresh air pumped into his career, which is why he felt so deflated when she died. In their short time together, they had managed to bust up Morton’s operation pretty good, but they hadn’t figured out how he was moving his merchandise. Once the Marshal was gone, all signs of Morton dried up. All of their associates from Mechanicsburg were either dead or missing, and the city itself was as quiet as the abandoned workshops out in the desert.
Poaching was still on the rise, so he assumed smuggling was too, but without Morton tending the center of the web, Officer Brennan didn’t know how to proceed with the investigation. Since then, he had gone back to his normal routine, biding time until the second Athena-class Marshal was scheduled to be reborn. When he finally got the good news, he wanted to meet her at the hospital, but he was reluctant to make it official business. Reports of her death had been so vague that Brennan suspected USi of censoring them, and it wasn’t like him to question his superiors, but a lot of details were being swept under the rug. He decided to intercept her in Buena Vista, the tiny migrant town that they had used as a rendezvous during the rebellion. Even if the respawned Marshal didn’t remember her previous life, because if USi were hiding things from a Peacekeeper they might try with a Marshal too, it was on the way from the hospital to the crater, so he felt confident that she would stop by.
Officer Brennan had been sitting at the bar for three days already, thinking about the last time he saw her alive. He had been sitting on the exact same stool, surrounded by members of the California Sunrise gang, who had been instrumental in the fight against Morton. The Marshal was more than half a day late when she finally burst through the airlock, stark raving mad and waving a bloody stump where her arm should have been. Although she had found the right bar, her piercing blue-grey eyes flitted all around without seeming to recognize anything. She was screaming all sorts of wild swears and incoherent gibberish, and everyone who didn’t know her ran off.
Correctly assuming that the Marshal’s madness had been caused by the unceremonious severing of her Logo, the gang tried to usher her into a chair, but she fought them off. Afraid for their own safety more than hers, they were slowly backing off when those steely blue-grey eyes locked onto Brennan’s. With her last ounce of strength, the Marshal lunged at him and screamed, “You did this to me!”
In a state of shocked confusion, Brennan stood there as she clasped her good hand around his neck. Fortunately, she had been too weak to tear out his throat, and it was only a matter of seconds before her eyes rolled back into her head. Muttering softly, she collapsed to the floor, and the gang carried her to a table. Of everything the Marshal shouted, those five words were the only ones he could make head or tail of, and they still didn’t make sense. Brennan knew he was innocent and had been surrounded by mutual acquaintances who could confirm his alibi. When it came time to take the Marshal somewhere to heal up though, he didn’t want to know where that was.
A few days later, Brennan heard that the Marshal was back on her feet, but a week or so after that, she was pronounced dead at the crater. Without her Logo, she wouldn’t have been able to make a data-dump, but protocol would have been to manually submit a report as soon as possible and USi claimed not to have received one. There were a few legitimate reasons why the government might conceal the truth from him, but Brennan couldn’t help but be suspicious of foul play. It would be convenient, to an extent, if the Marshal no longer suspected him of perpetrating her predecessor’s assassination, but the Peacekeeper genuinely hoped things would pick up right where they’d left off.
Chapter Nine
Preserve and Protect
Riding across the desert atop the Longcoat had been an absolute dream, and for a while, the Marshal thought that the fresh air and freedom of the wide-open landscape would be enough to sustain their enthusiasm forever. They couldn’t go full speed without the shield up, but having the warmth that beat down from the sun dragged off their back by the wind was worth it. The bike-tank was still going fast enough to send massive amounts of adrenaline coursing through their cardiovascular system, and the Logo assured them that there was no rush. As they delved deeper into their predecessor’s case files, however, their mood started to shift .
Back at the hospital, the Marshal had noticed that some of the data stored on the Logo seemed a little bulky and jumbled, but they had assumed it was only due to redundancies resulting from overlapping interdepartmental investigations and redactions required by the embargo. Upon further inspection, experience files had been transcoded to the point of corruption, transcripts were an insulting mixture of incoherent and incomplete, and excesses of pointless code put the files’ overall quality far below USi standards. There wasn’t enough evidence to know for sure, but the Marshal started to suspect that their memories had been tampered with, and they briefly considered going back to get some answers out of that smarmy obstetrician.
Regardless of what he knows, if we go back to the hospital, USi is going to think there’s something wrong with us. They’ll revoke our mission authority. Then they thought about going to New York City and using a hardline to report to USi directly. Even if we’re able to bypass the Matron, there are a limited number of parties who could perpetrate this kind of deceit, which means there’s a good chance that whoever we get on the other end is involved. Plus, we’re working with conjecture and speculation. We can’t risk jumping rank until we have proof. They had no choice but to continue with their plan, but it was a long ride to Buena Vista.
Incubated by heat from the sun, the Marshal’s suspicions gradually grew into full-blown conspiracy theories. Considering the economic stipulations regarding planetside technology, there sure is a lot of money invested down here. From environmental regulatory systems and civil infrastructure, down to microbial life and carbon history, everything is blatantly paid for by corporate entities. If something goes wrong, investors stand to lose a lot more than money. Given the notoriety of the Marshal program, even a minor field malfunction would send devastating ripples through the universal economy. Each and every member of Earth’s Board of Trustees has a laundry list of potential reasons to limit our investigation into the death of Earth’s first Athena-class Marshal.
Gene banks have the most visible exposure. Retrofitting the Marshals’ indomitable genetic code to be compatible with the embargo’s guidelines should have left a much longer paper trail. Runner-up in terms of liability is Big Ed. It’ll be harder to trace behavioral problems back to pre-ed training, but consumer confidence is everything to education corporations. The military has a lot of skin in the game here, too, but their lobbyists are experts in concealment. We’ll never pin anything on them.
Compared to the rest of the files we received from the Matron, the profiles of everyone on the Board of Trustees are suspiciously thorough. A long list of names linked to various spreadsheets appeared in their mind’s eye and the Marshal considered it carefully. There’s no tangible evidence of wrongdoing, but there are plenty of concrete connections to major players in the universal economy, which make them look very guilty.
If we’re talking about accusing board members of corruption, we need concrete evidence of Earthside malfeasance. We should go public instead. Again, the Marshal thought about going to New York. Occupying a government facility would draw a lot of attention. Anyone watch
ing here or in space would know something was wrong. Gauging the government’s reaction would give us a big leg up in figuring out who’s on what side, but disrupting megacity operations is even more likely to get us decommissioned than going back to the hospital. We’ll get there eventually. Let’s just stick to the plan.
Wind continued to crash through the Marshal’s hair as they sailed across the open desert, but for all the joy that came with riding towards their new life of servitude, the frustrations of being stuck in transit accumulated quickly. Best case scenario is we find a bunch of low-level poachers and junk peddlers. You think they’ll take us to their secret hideout? Introduce us to their boss? And the crater? It’s a hole in the ground. Anything of interest would have been found by the forensic teams or wiped clean months ago. We should go straight to New York.
The Marshal tried not to let anticipated dead ends and difficulties dampen their spirits, and by the time they pulled into Buena Vista, they had worked themselves into a considerable rage. It was a one road town lined with bunkhouses on either side, a long barn-like common building on one end and a tall garage on the other. As they passed the first structure on their way to park, the Logo picked up some dubious electronic signals coming from inside and they felt their temper truly flare for the first time. WHAT?! No wireless frequencies should be that strong this far from a USi facility!
Tearing down the town’s main drag, the Marshal pulled into the garage with a screeching turn. After parking, they stormed back down the center of the street without considering how much attention they might be drawing to themselves. It was hard to see through the thick red sand swirling through the air, and before they could see the man waiting for them outside the barn, the Logo identified the hidden figure Officer Brennan, the local Peacekeeper. Not only is he one of the most renowned civil servants in the history of the planet, his jurisdiction includes this place, the crater, and Mechanicsburg. Why wasn’t he on our list of people to talk to– their thoughts were interrupted as a partially corrupted file informed them that the officer had worked alongside the first Athena-class Marshal. The details of their partnership have been scrubbed clean, but given that he’s standing there, he must have something to say.
Under the Shadow of the Plateau: Frontier Forever Page 8