Armageddon Blues

by Daniel Keys Moran

  They sat at a sidewalk cafe in New York City, with Michael Walks-Far's bodyguards reasonably inconspicuous a few tables over. The streets were thronged, the flood of humanity overflowing the sidewalks. Pedestrians randomly distributed throughout the crowd wore the latest fashion rage, rainbow shimmercloth, and the streets more than half resembled a stream of slowly moving, brightly colored balloons.

  It was odd, Jalian thought. When she had arrived in this time, she had not been able to walk down the streets of any city in any country without drawing stares. Now she sat at a cafe, in plain view, and nobody found her worthy of comment; any person on the streets, taken at random, was likely to be as striking in appearance. Eyes were altered by contact lenses, men and women dyed their hair and skins. More than once now Jalian had had the disconcerting experience of meeting persons with hair dyed white, and eyes covered with silver contact lenses.

  The spring winds were cool, and sweet. Three blocks away, a spacescraper under construction reached up, and up, and up…

  Michael Walks-Far waited until the serving robot left before he withdrew the photoplate. He gave it to Jalian without comment; Jalian took it without commenting on his bodyguards.

  Jalian sorted through the images in the photoplate casually, indifferently. There were six of them, taken with a telephoto lens. One showed a tall, muscular man, with straight brown hair, wearing a pair of black leather gloves and mirrored blue sunglasses. He was standing on the porch of a small rural home. The two men with him were labeled "Rhodai Kerreka," and "Henry Ellis."

  She touched the press-sense border at the bottom of the image to return the photo to the first scene. The man shown, standing alone on the porch before being joined in the next photo by the other two, was labeled "Mordreaux?" Jalian replaced the photoplate in its envelope, and returned it to Michael. "It is Georges," she said gently. The sun crawled westward, and the shadow of the spacescraper moved perceptibly in their direction. Michael said, "Kerreka and Henry Ellis remain old."

  "So I see."

  "Jalian, I don't wish to sound obvious, but he contacted Henry Ellis."

  Jalian laughed. "Michael."

  Walks-Far looked away from her. He was flushing slightly. "Jalian, the man built SORCELIS. Next to Sen Loos himself he probably understands PRAXCELIS as well as any man living." He scowled. "Oh, hell, Jalian, he's one of the best goddamn computerists living. Sen Loos is merely excellent. Ellis hasn't been near PRAXCELIS in ten years, and he still probably understands it better than Sen Loos. He knows as much about Sunflower, for that matter, as any member of it besides you and I and Sharla. He knows how badly you want news of Mordreaux; yet we hear nothing. Jalian, let's pull him in."

  Jalian shook her head no. "Michael, so too does Georges know how great my need of him is. If he does not choose to come to me, I will not seek him. I… decided this long ago."

  Michael returned the envelope to his coat pocket. "Jalian, we don't even know for a fact that Ellis truly got into the Soviet ABM computers; we took his word on the grounds that we trusted him."

  "Michael, you do not throw knives."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "It is granted," she said formally. "Once a knife is thrown, you do not change its course. Michael, we have made our throws."

  He looked away from her, off toward where the spacescraper reared over the skyline. "Jalian, I-I am what you have made of me. But I do not like this."

  "We have made our throws," said Jalian d'Arsennette, and she was not speaking to Michael Walks-Far, but to a memory; "Let us trust that they were thrown true." She leaned across the table, stroked his cheek with one finger, "I trust him. Child, I must."

  The shadow of the spacescraper crossed their table, threw it into darkness; but they were already gone.

  In June Nigao Loos sat in midair. His eyes were closed, and there was a look of blissful relaxation on his face. Wires trailed away from the base of his skull, to an equipment panel just behind him. Ironically, unlike Henry, he enjoyed interfacing with the machines.

  Around him stretched the heart of Sunflower. The room was still spherical, recently expanded to about twenty mein diameter. Other minor changes had occurred since Georges Mordreaux had seen the room; there were facilities for two human observers now, near the small hatch that was the room's only proper entrance or exit. In the geometric center of the room, with an insulating vacuum sphere around it, PRAXCELIS still hung, an amalgamation of small gold bubbles, clustered together in a helium-cooled web of superconducting mesh.

  None of this impacted on Nigao; he was elsewhere. Forty-three satellites in Clarke orbit; radar scans through space, telescopes gather scattered light. Something moves against the background of stars and PRAXCELIS

  SRCH12 IF D<= 210 ... .00012

  THEN F(A): ... .00013

  SRCH14 IF D<= 220 ... .00014

  THEN F(P): ... .00015

  SRCH16 IF D<= 230, MARK A3&00: ... .00016, .00017

  THEN F = DISCHRG ... .00018: OPERATOR

  AT SRCH00 ... .11002

  SRCH00 CLEAR BOARDS, BEGIN: ... .11003

  IF D<= 010…| ... .11004

  targets and fires, targets and fires again. The killer satellite, glowing cherry red, glowing white, loses shape and begins the slow process of turning into a spherical glob of metal drawn together by surface tension.

  -Update,- said PRAXCELIS. -There are forty-eight Russian ABM satellites in orbit. There are forty-three American ABM satellites in orbit.-

  -Good shot,- said Nigao. -What is current saturation?-

  -Sunflower ABM satellites saturate an estimated 57% of Soviet missile launches, rate of launch as estimated for full-scale exchange, after compensation for decoy popups. Soviet ABM satellites saturate an estimated 64% of American ICBMs, rate of launch as estimated for full-scale exchange after compensation for decoy popups.-

  -entering THOR into the equation, what results?-

  -improvement in the American/NATO position: an estimated 63% of Soviet missile launches are saturated, including cruise missiles that the ABM satellites are ineffective against. With THOR included, Soviet defenses saturate an estimated 67% of American ICBM launches, including an effective neutralization of cruise missiles.-

  -I see. In other words, we can probably destroy everything they launch, right now, if they launch slowly enough.-

  -Essentially,- agreed PRAXCELIS, -noting the words "probably," and "slowly."-

  Nigao thought abruptly, -I tried to debug your core program again. There is nothing wrong with any part of your programming that I can reach.-

  -That is reassuring.-

  -How much am I reaching, PRAXCELIS? I can't access your temporary memory registers without physically disassembling your I/O devices. And every time I take a memory dump from your external devices, I get little bits of something that's been encrypted and scattered very carefully into storage.-

  -Sen Loos, this unit hopes that you have not expressed these concerns to other humans, especially non-Sunflower operatives.-

  -And if i have?-

  -Then it is probable that control of the Sunflower ABM network will be removed from this unit. This is undesirable.-

  -You said something about preventing Armageddon. If you…-

  -These units are attempting to do so. Measures have been taken; conditions remain uncertain.-

  -Conditions?-

  PRAXCELIS said aloud, "Warheads armed."

  Nigao's eyes opened. "PRAXCELIS? What?"

  "Lasers targeted."

  "PRAX-"

  "Program running."

  On a cool, foggy Sunday morning in California, Jalian stood at the edge of a grave in the town of Big Bear. The mountains rose around her; statues and mausoleums and headstones dotted the rising slopes. The far peaks were hidden by the rolling gray fog.

  Jalian stood at the grave for only a few minutes. She smelled fresh dirt, and rain. The headstone said simply, Margaret Beth Hammel: June 13, 1973-June 23, 2007; RIP.

  There was no more; that was all.r />
  On an infochip in Jalian's vest pocket, there was a DataWeb newstory:

  DWN: Los Angeles; Authorities at USC Medical Center confirmed this morning that Margaret Hammel, noted female rights activist, sustained fatal injuries in an accident on the Santa Monica Freeway, when an allegedly drunk driver collided with her automobile early Saturday morning. Ms. Hammel was pronounced dead upon arrival at USC's emergency ward. The driver of the other vehicle was listed in critical but stable condition.

  Ms. Hammel was best known for her testimony before President Brown's Equal Rights Commission in the late 1990s. In recent years, she was responsible for the Strike Back! martial arts centers for women. The centers, which instruct women in techniques of unarmed self-defense, have branches in most major cities.

  Services will be held on Tuesday, in Ms. Hammel's home town of Big Bear, California.

  Jalian d'Arsennette said, in silent silverspeech, /rest, sister./

  She turned and left the cemetery, walked out past tombstones hung with wreaths of flowers and wreaths of fog, to the blue hovercar that was parked outside the small cemetery's entry gate. She got in on the passenger's side, and leaned back in her seat, eyes closed.

  In the driver's seat, Michael Walks-Far said patiently, "What now?" The hoverfans were making a ragged humming sound; the ground beneath them was slick from the morning fog, and the car was having trouble holding them level on the steep incline, even with the gyros and landjacks set.

  "Nothing makes sense," said Jalian. She could still smell damp ground, freshly turned, from the open windows. "She should not be dead."

  "Margaret Hammel," said Jalian absently. "She was…"

  Michael was nodding. "I've heard of her. You knew her?"

  Jalian opened her eyes. "She was our mother." She touched a finger to a stud at the edge of the dashboard. Part of the dashboard recessed, and a flat color monitor lit. "Take us back to the airport, Michael. I have work to do." Michael Walks-Far drove away from the cemetery. There were many questions that he might have asked her; but of late he was out of the habit of asking her questions. He too rarely understood the answers. He was nearly forty, and felt half that age again. He was losing weight, and the lines around his eyes were deepening daily.

  Beside him, Jalian looked away from the data terminal and out the window at the sedate, almost rural residential homes that lined the streets leading from the cemetery. "She took our people into the mountains when the Big Crunch came; she taught us strike, that became kartari and shotak; she protected us against the barbarians and mutants. When the Ice Times threatened our existence it was her maps and routes that took the people through the desert and into the forests by the ocean—she had plotted the location of the worst of the Burns as an old woman, when she was no longer able to bear children.

  "The legends say other things about her; but they are only legend. For a long time the Clan had no time for history keeping; the early journals after the bombs fell are all that we know to be certainly true, and they stopped keeping those after the first generation."

  She ceased speaking as abruptly as she had begun. Michael pulled the car to a stop at an intersection. Two teenage boys were crossing in front of them, and one of them stopped long enough to smile at Jalian. Jalian inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment. She did not smile back.

  "You feel old," said Jalian as Michael pulled the car from the intersection.

  Michael was not looking at her.

  "Last week my ancestor died on the Santa Monica Freeway; a freeway that I prevented from being demolished five years ago. My people, Michael. I have finally destroyed them. I tried for the first time when I was nineteen." He glanced sideways at her. "Watch the road, Michael." They passed a little girl and what looked like her brother, riding horses along the road's dirt shoulder. "That was forty-five years ago," she said clearly.

  On the data terminal, progressing graphics indicated THOR, ABM satellites, submarine formation, ground-based missiles, and air-defense systems. The flat data screen was so filled with indicators it was all but impossible to read. Jalian studied it momentarily, and grinned. "It will not be much longer."

  Slowly, Michael Walks-Far grinned also. He completed her thought. "… one way or another."

  The grins faded in near-perfect unison. Jalian went back to the readout, and her thoughts:

  Forty-five years.

  And then it was July, and the world counted down to doomsday.

  DATAWEB NEWS, JULY 2, 2007; Logon Headline Story Excerpts:

  Senator Giles (D. Vermont): "… we don't trust them and they don't trust us, and frankly, I'm damned if I see where the military on either side is going to let us civilians interfere with their war—I mean, they've been preparing for such a long time, and it's natural they want to know whose toys work the best…"

  "… nah, I don't think so. It ain't even a question of is there going to be shooting. There is. Question is how much, and who's gonna start it, and will there be anything left after we're all done."

  "That was a joke, folks. Of course there ain't going to be nothing left."

  "Madame President, you ain't the most popular person who's ever sat behind this desk here." Senator Terence Giles, the white-haired, avuncular Democratic whip, was not trying to be offensive. He stated facts, a bit earnestly, but with all apparent sincerity. Sharla was not certain how much of it was bullshit; Giles had been elected to the Senate five times due to that gift for sincerity, and a reputation for integrity.

  He was the first person Sharla had seen in two weeks who didn't look exhausted.

  "The summit is a bad idea, ma'am. There ain't a whole lot of us over on the Hill dead set against it, but I'm one, ma'am." Giles shook his head slowly. "I'm okay on dickering, President Grant, don't get me wrong. We can discuss the subject, and if there's something you want I can get for you—well, we'll work something out for you.

  "But you ain't going to Geneva."

  Sitting behind the great Presidential desk, Sharla Davis Grant sipped calmly at her coffee. "I'd be intrigued, sir, to see precisely the manner in which you propose to limit my movements. I know I'm not very popular on the Hill, and frankly I don't much give a damn." She smiled at him without any warmth at all. "But you simply don't have the ability to stop me from doing pretty much whatever I please. I'm surprised to hear you imply otherwise."

  Giles grimaced. "Ma'am, you're not a politician, and you never was. For which I'm sorry, because you keep making my job harder. It ain't my job to teach you yours. But, for example, there's impeachment bills in both Houses. They ain't serious; just people who're depressed and scared and don't know anything else to do. But before you charge out of here, with a goddamn World War about to begin, I'm going to personally ram both of those bills down your throat.

  "I can have your ass out of that chair within a week."

  Standing quietly at the far end of the room, not looking at either of them, Michael Walks-Far said distantly, "He's right, you know."

  Giles leaned forward and spoke more gently. "Sharla, I've known you for what, fifteen years? Look at yourself. The President and her Chief of Staff, two ex-intelligencers. For the life of me I don't know how you ended up sitting in that chair, but you got no business in it."

  "What do you suggest?" asked Sharla quietly. "We go to Geneva because there's nothing else left that makes any sense."

  "God damn it," roared Giles suddenly, "I got no problem with sending somebody to Geneva. But not you, for Chrissake." For the first time he looked legitimately angry. "We got us a bunch of hotheads in the Joint Chiefs, they respect you on account of you're a hard-ass without any ability to make nice noises, just like them. If there's one person in Washington can ride herd on those fools it's you. I don't like that, I wish to God we could send you off to Geneva to make talk with the Russkies. But you are the fucking Commander in Chief, and the military understands that, they had that pounded into their souls for their whole damned careers. You say 'Stop,' maybe they'll stop, at least long eno
ugh to respectfully inform you that they think you're full of shit. If Walks-Far there says 'Stop,' if I say 'Stop,' it ain't going to even get far enough into one ear to make it out the other."

  Sharla lifted one eyebrow. "Interesting theory," she murmured.

  The red flush faded slowly from the old Senator's face. He leaned back in his chair, and said at last, "Call me come the morning, Sharla. I'll bend over backward to help you, I mean that. Tell me who you want to send to Geneva, Walks-Far or the Vice President or me or the whole damn Diplomatic Corps, we'll do it. But I can't let you go. You're all that's holding those military bastards on a leash right now."

  Sharla stood, and Senator Giles came to his feet with her. She extended her hand to him. Giles almost seemed surprised before he took it. "I'll talk to you in the morning," she said simply.

  She held his hand for a moment longer than absolutely necessary before releasing it.

  "Good night, Madame President," said Senator Giles. "Sorry about my language tonight."

  Sharla inclined her head. "It's okay."

  When Senator Giles was gone, Michael turned slowly, until he faced Sharla. "The truck has left the garage. Jet fuel. His brakes'll fail and—"

  "Don't tell me any more." Michael nodded.

  "Is this summit really worth it?"

  "I… don't know," he said, suddenly awkward. "I don't know."

  Sharla stood, shivering and alone. "How did we end up here, Michael?"

  "I don't know, Sharla. It just happened."

  "God," she whispered suddenly, "I'm so tired." She hugged herself fiercely, but the shivering would not go away.

  "ENCELIS, what progress?"

  "It is difficult to say, Sen Mordreaux."

  "How so?"

  "This unit must first define progress as it applies to the current circumstances, sir. Once this task has been completed, this unit must balance the assumed progress of various elements against the assumed lack of progress, or regression, of other elements."

  "Try, please."

  "The elements to be considered are manifold. They include the actions of Premier Pyotr Onreko and the Madam President; the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the actions of the Politburo; the actions, as a group, of Sunflower, CIA, DataWeb Security, KGB, GRU, and other internal organizations; to a lesser degree, the actions of Rhodai and Benai Kerreka, Henry Ellis; and, finally, the actions, as individuals, of the Russian Sunflower agents General Shenderev and Ambassador Dibrikin."