by RJ Johnson
“I know Steven, I know what I promised. But these nice people brought you a puzzle to solve.”
Steven glanced at Meade and Emeline for the first time since they walked in. “Puzzle? I like puzzles. What sort of puzzle did you bring me?”
Steven stood and began to paw at Meade and Emeline searching through their pockets. Meade jerked back out of the man’s reach while Emeline just stood there bemused while Steven patted her down.
“Where’s the puzzle?” Steven demanded.
Kansas gently pushed Steven back into his chair, which (since Kansas was six inches taller and forty pounds heavier) was simple enough for the man to do.
“I said you shouldn’t be rude Steven. We need to use that butterfly effect exploit we’ve been holding onto to solve it.”
Steven’s eyes became worried and he looked at Kansas, “Are you sure?”
Kansas nodded, “I’m sure Steven. It’s all right. We can trust them.”
A huge grin spread over Steven’s face and he jumped over to his computer terminal and began typing quickly on the keyboard in front of him. Kansas edged back towards Meade and Emeline.
“Give him a second to boot the program. I’ll need that file too.”
Meade nodded and offered his ArmBar out with the file selected. Kansas took the virtual icon and pulled it over to Steven’s desk.
“Steven, this is the puzzle I’d like you to unlock with the Butterfly exploit. Can you do that for me?”
“Happy to!” Steven said. He lowered his eyes and examined the files on his screen, totally absorbed in his work. The man was clearly in his element.
Meade stepped up next to Kansas and leaned in close to his ear, “What’s wrong with him?”
Kansas darted his eyes over to Meade, “My mom used to say people like him were kissed by God. Autistic, brain damage, I’m not really sure what happened to the man, but from those scars on his head, my guess is that someone from the Consortium got ahold of him and did some sort of experiments with his brain.”
Meade glanced at Steven’s head and he saw what Kansas was talking about. Steven only had patches of hair scattered around his shockingly white scalp where other parts of his head were red and raw with scar tissue.
“Kansas,” Steven piped up, “You know there’s a trapdoor encoded on this right?”
Kansas immediately turned his attention back to his charge, “That’s why we’re using the butterfly exploit to decode it. We can’t have the Coalition knowing who broke the file.”
“That’s what I’m here for!” Steven said happily, and he turned back to his work. Kansas looked back over at Meade.
“I found him wandering the plains a few years ago. Once we nursed him back to health, we found that he had a real knack with computers. He likes it down here, and I’m happy enough to let him work.” Kansas said patting his friend’s back.
“Got it!” Steven sung out happily, “You brought me a tough one. Took me a whole sixty seconds to unlock it. Fortunately, the Butterfly exploit made short work of it. All I had to do was apply a reverse algorithm to suss out the encryption key and tada!” Steven pointed at the display in front of him which was displaying a large set of characters and files he had unlocked.
“Thanks Steve,” Kansas said gently. “If you can find another zero day exploit like that, I’d sure appreciate another chance at using one.”
“I’ll do what I can Kay,” Steven replied happily.
Kansas picked up the translucent files off the desktop which had appeared the second Steven had unlocked the file for them, “You paid for ‘em. I hope they were worth it.”
“Well, WE didn’t pay for ‘em exactly.” Meade said, musing over the documents. “To be honest, I’m not even sure what we paid for.”
“Sarah ought to have a better handle on it,” Emeline said.
“Good point, let’s get the hell out of here and find out why this data is enough to kill over. The quicker we clear my name the sooner I can go home and drink.”
“Priorities Meade,” Emeline said as they walked towards the airlock. “You don’t have ‘em.”
Chapter Seventeen
They moved quickly to the habitat modules that connected to the huge underground cavern where Kansas and the MiM’s kept their supplies. There, they found an impatient looking Sarah with her arms folded tapping her feet waiting outside. The second Meade and Emeline emerged from the airlock, Sarah jumped forward accosting them.
“Did you get it?” she demanded.
“We got something,” Meade said. “What it is… well, I think you’ll have a better idea of that than we do.”
“Show me,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Meade opened up the file that Kansas had cracked for them and pushed his display over to Sarah’s ArmBar. She looked at the files pawing through them looking through what they had uncovered.
“Strange…” Sarah said, biting the edge of her bottom lip. “It’s just… schedules, likes, dislikes, alliances, background info… oh well, hello there.” Sarah withdrew a familiar looking object out of the pile of virtual documents projected above her forearm. “What do you think Laszlo wanted with this?”
Meade’s eyes widened when he saw what Sarah was holding. It was a scoped out gauss rifle – only, this was unlike any sniper rifle he’d seen before. The gun was completely black and had three points that angled in at the end of the barrel. Underneath it, a large rotating cylinder was mounted into the barrel.
“Any clue what that is?”
Sarah shook her head, “Nope, you?”
“No.” Meade said deflated. “Em?”
“It’s a rifle of some kind obviously, but way more advanced beyond anything I’ve seen.” Emeline mused over the virtual plan of the rifle. “Clearly it’s a sniper rifle of some sort, and I’d say it looks like it’s based off of the B&T APR, but, the tapered ends on the barrel, I can’t figure what those would be for.”
“I do,” Kansas said from the other side of the room.
Meade, Sarah and Emeline whirled around to look at the tall man. In the excitement, Meade had forgotten he was even standing there.
“You do?” Meade asked.
“I’ve…” Kansas hesitated for a moment, “I heard rumors about a rifle like that, but I never thought they ever went into production.”
“What is it?” Emeline pressed.
Kansas sidled up next to them and picked up the virtual projection of the rifle off the table and examined it, “It was a sniper rifle project the Coalition started towards the end of the Last War. They designed it so that the beam would be able to cut through most solid materials. They were looking to miniaturize the ion cannons that normally mounted on fast attack ships.”
He picked it up and aimed the holoprojection around the room, sighting through the barrel.
“It looks like a gauss rifle, but instead of a slug propelled to supersonic speeds, it fires a pulse of highly charged particles that can go through concrete, duraplating, really anything that stands in the way of what you want dead.”
“What’s all this other stuff we got?” Meade asked, turning his attention back to Sarah and the scattered documents on the table.
“Like I said, schedules, likes, dislikes…”
“Of who?”
“Of… Oh my God, Jim…” Sarah looked up at him worried, “It’s all information on Ambassador Corcoran.”
The dots connected for him instantly.
“Laszlo’s trying to kill the Ambassador,” Meade said grimly.
“But why?” Sarah said. “Why crash my dad’s ship?”
“You said your father mentioned they were trying to kidnap someone right?” Meade asked.
A shadow crossed Sarah’s face and she shrugged. “He wasn’t entirely clear, but he mentioned something about the boarding party trying to kidnap someone from his crew.”
“What good would some crewman be to Laszlo?” Meade wanted to know.
“This wasn’t some random crewman,” Sarah s
aid shaking her head, “He was supposed to be the Ambassador’s new body man-”
“Her what?” Meade asked.
“Body man, more or less the guy who gets whatever she might need,” Sarah said. “It’s usually reserved for cadets on a command track or those well-connected children of the politically important.”
“So, they break into the ship and steal the kid’s data on the Ambassador. Couldn’t they have found that kind of stuff here on Mars?” Meade asked, stroking his chin.
“Depends,” Sarah shrugged. “That sort of information isn’t specially compartmentalized or anything. Shoot, you could just have someone follow the Ambassador around for a few weeks and to get a good idea of everything that’s in here.”
“Then that means there’s something more,” Meade said, still stroking his chin. He closed his eyes and took off his hat. He tapped his fingers against his skull as he thought about what could have possibly motivated Laszlo to send a group of terrorists up to steal a bunch of data that was more or less freely available. He knew he was missing something, he could feel the answer hovering maddeningly at the edge of his consciousness. He opened his eyes as a thought suddenly struck him.
“Is there a file on there that references Cassandra at all?”
Sarah pawed through the virtual documents in front of her and shook her head. “Not that I can… wait…”
She leaned forward and picked up a small file from the edge of the pile that had stacked up on the table. She swept the rest of the files away back into Meade’s ArmBar, holding a red file.
“This references Cassandra.” She tossed the file to Meade and he opened it, looking at it, scrolling up and down. He struggled to make heads or tails out of the characters flowing together on the screen in front of him. It looked like a formula, but he didn’t know what many of the symbols represented.
“It’s nothing but one long damn formula.”
Emeline stepped forward and examined the file, “It’s not a formula, it’s code.”
“Code?”
“Sure, it looks like some sort of predictive algorithm.” Emeline squinted at the long string of characters and whistled low, “This thing has been designed to take in and analyze an unbelievable amount of data, I’m talking at least a few hundred terabytes per second.”
“What on Earth could use that much data?” Meade asked. He looked at everyone surrounding him, but no one spoke up, they didn’t have any idea either. Meade glanced back down at the red file and pushed it away shrugging.
“Fuck it, it’s low on the priority list, what matters is what we do know. Laszlo’s looking to put an end to the Ambassador’s reign. Why?”
“Why not?”
The voice had come from Kansas who had up until now been satisfied to watch with passing interest what Meade, Sarah and Emeline were up to. Meade glanced back at Kansas who stepped forward into the light.
“I don’t mean to tell you your business,” he began, “But it ain’t as if Corcoran has done the colonists a whole lotta favors. She’s little better than a despot.”
“She’s kept in check by the House,” Emeline said, defending the Coalition.
“And we all know it’s the Warlords who keeps the House in check,” Kansas shot back quickly.
“They’re not all corrupt!” Emeline’s eyes flashed in anger and Meade grinned. She was her father’s daughter after all. Emeline had been raised to be a true believer in the democracy ideals the Coalition supposedly promoted. But anyone who didn’t turn a blind eye knew that most of the representatives were bought and paid for by the Warlords. Anyone with enough money or interest in directing the local politics into something that favored them better than their neighbors.
“There are enough of ‘em to make life difficult for those who don’t have enough credits.”
This arguing would do neither of them any good. Meade held up a hand to stop them and thought about how to get them back on track.
“They’re going to kill the Ambassador, but we don’t know why.” Meade said, and he began to pace the room. His duster jacket waved behind him as he moved back and forth.
“Does it matter why?” Emeline asked. “They’re clearly up to something. What we need to do is get to the Ambassador and warn her of the plot.”
Meade shook his head, “I don’t know how we’re gonna be able to do that. I’m fairly sure that her chief security man is in on it. Hugh’s been pretty chummy with Laszlo the last few days.”
“Then we’ve got no other options,” Emeline said, she turned to Sarah. “We need you to break us into the Ambassador’s compound so we can warn her directly ourselves.”
“How the hell do you expect me to get you two past some of the best security on Mars?” Sarah snapped at Emeline. “It isn’t exactly like the Ambassador receives visitors.”
“We might not need to,” Meade said. A smile spread over his face. “I think I know exactly how we can get the word to her.”
Emeline and Sarah stopped arguing and they both turned to Meade at the same time.
“He’s got a plan…” Sarah said to Emeline.
“Kill me now,” Emeline snorted.
“Come on, don’t be like that,” Meade said, protesting. “Besides, neither of you will be in any danger, just me.”
“Well, that’s different,” Emeline said.
“What’s your plan?” Sarah asked quickly.
Meade gathered up the files they had spread out on the desk and leaned forward.
“Our best bet is to intercept the Ambassador while she goes from one location to another. All we have to do is shanghai the driver; I take his place and warn her.”
They paused, staring at him.
“That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” Emeline said finally.
“Agreed,” Sarah said shaking her head.
“It’s not that stupid.” Meade said, getting hot under the collar.
“It’s full of stupid ideas!” Emeline added, “even if you were able to switch out the driver, how the hell do you expect to get away? She’s followed by a cadre of Coalition MPs, all of which by the way, have your face memorized.”
Meade swallowed. They had a point. How would he be able to sneak by the whole Coalition?
Kansas cleared his throat.
“Folks, I think I might be able to help…”
Chapter Eighteen
They approached Restaurant Row cautiously in Kansas’ huge Aerocycle. With enough room for all four of them, they were able to quickly fly back to New Plymouth. Fortunately, because they were able to decrypt the infodump, they knew exactly where the Ambassador would be at all times over the next few days.
They slowed as they approached the alleyway where a multitude of restaurants made their home in New Plymouth. Boasting every type of dining experience from the Homeworld, from cheap eats to five star dining, Restaurant Row was the place to go if you wanted to eat something that you didn’t cook yourself. It was also one of the few places a person could get themselves a steak. Beef was increasingly rare on Mars. Raising cattle had proven to be entirely too difficult.
“Are we sure this is going to work?” Meade asked examining the attachment on his ArmBar.
“It’s worked well enough to fool every Blue Bell I’ve needed to slip past in the Labyrinths,” Kansas said proudly. “Give it a try, I promise if it doesn’t work, take comfort in the fact that her security will kill you so quick that you won’t even notice.”
“That’s helpful,” Meade groused. He played with the settings on the dial. “All I have to do is scan the man I’m impersonating?”
“That’s it,” Kansas said. “Be warned though, the program and holoemitter takes a lot out of your ABR’s power supply, so you’re limited to a half hour at best. Get in, do what you need to do and then get out.”
“Don’t worry,” Meade said slipping out of his jacket. He took his hat off and handed it off to Emeline. “All I want to do is warn her and show the Ambassador the proof of someone trying to kil
l her. Hopefully, she’ll be able to pull some strings to get this stupid drug charge dropped.”
“I wouldn’t hold out hope on that,” Sarah warned him. “She’s a tough nut from what I hear.”
They approached the restaurant and Kansas nodded to him, “Time to put on your mask.”
Kansas stopped Meade and checked the rig on his ArmBar one final time as he adjusted a few minor settings. “I included a stock high level Coalition officer as the default projection. It’s one I’ve used many times and no one’s ever given me a second glance. All you have to do is start up the application.”
Meade glanced down at the display on his ArmBar, “Moment of truth.” He hit enter on the application and held his breath until the app began working.
At first nothing happened, but gradually, Meade began to see the landscape and faces around him begin to turn a soft yellow color. It wasn’t difficult to see through or anything, but there was a definite perception shift as the ArmBar began to project the image of a Coalition officer. Emeline and Sarah reacted with a start as they looked at him now, while Kansas grinned in the corner as he watched Meade’s transformation.
“Did it work?” Meade asked, hesitating.
“I don’t know. Have you always been a six foot tall black man?” Emeline asked with the hint of a smile on her face.
Meade looked down at his hands which were now a light caramel color. He felt for his face and saw the light scatter around his head as he moved his hands through the hologram to scratch his real face.
“Oops, still got a bit of adjusting to do with your settings,” Kansas said, leaping up to grab Meade’s now camouflaged ArmBar. “Just give me one second…”
Kansas busied himself over Meade’s ArmBar while he turned back to Sarah.
“How far is the Ambassador’s quarters from here?”
“The Coalition Directorate set aside a residence for her about five kilometers to the east,” Sarah opened her ArmBar and displayed a map for Meade to look at.
“What’s the plan?” Emeline asked.
“I knock her driver out and while I’m driving her home I convince her that she’s in danger and the only one who can help is me,” said Meade.