All Fall Down

by Astrotomato

  “Computer, please…”

  “Verigua.”

  “…sync your live comms traffic with my construct.”

  “Dear Commander, it already is. What do you think I am? A level five AI?”

  “Then please explain what’s going on. Why is no one moving or talking?”

  The cat jumped from the terminal onto the shoulder of a Sagittan woman: a willowy, light-skinned Medé figure just over two metres tall, she bore the inner knee and elbow grips on her clothes that natives of Sagittarius Prime used to climb the kilometre high algal trees on their home planet. “It’s quite simple. As soon as the incident occurred we locked down all traffic. We’re not idiots, Commander.”

  “What is that murmur, then?” Djembe looked at the Departures and Arrivals display hanging in mid-air between a large group of people, whose dead gazes and mouths made them look like zombies.

  “There is still some operational traffic of course. Lifts, building services. Researchers interacting with each other. Many things stop with death, but life carries on. Though you won’t find it out here on the public concourse of your spaceport construct.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Could you please take me to the comms archive for the past five days?”

  “Why certainly. Your spaceport appears to have a library. How about we use that? Shall we walk? I’d like to explore.” The cat jumped to the floor, landing several paces away, looking over its shoulder at Djembe.

  “Computer, just place me in the library, please. Time is precious.”

  “Well, before we go, you should note that the Arrivals and Departures board shows all flights as delayed. That was a hint.”

  “Computer. Verigua.” Djembe was used to people being awkward, but AIs were supposed to be efficient. Perhaps this AI's isolation was affecting it?

  “Very well.”

  Around them the concourse shifted out of focus until it became swatches of blurred colour, out of which a wood panelled library resolved. Book shelves surrounded Djembe, with reading tables at the end of each row, lit by small lamps. The cat disappeared between a row of shelves, re-appearing as an old man, white hair growing in tufts from above his ears. “Well, here’s your library. I found this librarian avatar in your file, hope you don’t mind if I use it. Not sure what I think of these tweed trousers though. Do you like them? Say you like them, be a good chap. Still, I like the waistcoat and these clip things on my arms. Very, hmm. Traditional?” The librarian avatar wandered to the librarian’s desk, passing a comment over his shoulder, “Still a bit clichéd though, Commander. Sure you wouldn’t like something else in here?”

  In the library’s central area, surrounded on all sides by shelving, was the main reading table. Djembe took a seat, “I like my library. It has small holo terminals, if that’s what you mean, set into the desk here. Could you please show me the comms logs starting a day before the incident, presented graphically, time, volume, colour coded by type.”

  The desk lit up with a three dimensional array of charts. The librarian sat down at his desk and explained, “Black, grey, white charts are services; blues and greens are personal communications; and the reds and oranges are work related, principally mining operations and scientific research. I’ll be over here if you have any questions. The time of the incident is marked on all of them, and you’ll notice that the personal communications logs all go to zero within one hour.”

  “Thank you, computer. I would like to work undisturbed for a short while. Can you please tell me when forty minutes has passed. ” Djembe pulled a chart over to his chair and plunged his hands into it. He broke the chart line open, revealing the computer code and information contained inside. From a pocket on the MI uniform he wore in the construct, he took out a small tool that looked like a cross between a syringe and a marker pen. “Now, let’s inject some system mapping tools inside, and see how leaky you are.” He rubbed the tiredness from his eyes, and set about investigating the Colony's communications protocols.

  The librarian shook his head slowly, picked up a date stamp, reached for a pile of books about babies, opened the first one, stamped it, reached for another. “I do so wish people would listen to me.” And louder, “Forty minutes it is, Commander.”

  “Yes, General Leland, please come in.”

  “Doctor Currie, how are you? Nice to meet you.”

  Masjid, half risen, returned to his seat, “Administrator Daoud told me you’d be visiting today. We don’t get many MI colleagues visiting. For all the great things we do, we receive so little attention.”

  Kate settled into a chair at Masjid’s desk, crossing her legs. “Thank you. I head up Military Intelligence’s Incident and Disaster Management Unit. I’ve been appointed to investigate and manage the incident with your researcher.”

  Masjid nodded, “Can I get you a drink? We grow some fine teas in our farming pods.” Kate nodded. Masjid stood and walked to a drinks unit. “This is a… regrettable incident.” He sat back in his chair, placing the two cups on his desk.

  Kate pulled a cup towards her, “What do you need from us?”

  “People aren't used to MI being here, General. The most I can ask is sensitivity, if there are criticisms to make about our procedures.”

  “I understand. I'd like to make a first attempt at controlling rumours.”

  “Rumours?”

  “The colonists are saying it's a vendetta killing.”

  “Ven..,” Masjid started to respond, then fell briefly silent, “I see. Do you believe that's what's actually happened?”

  “The Colony's report says exposure. I don't have any reason to doubt that.” Kate picked up her tea, blowing vapour across the still surface. “Have you a remembrance service planned? “

  “A service? No, it hadn't crossed my mind. Why?”

  “They can prove useful in keeping people busy, distracted. Emotions are no doubt raw.”

  Masjid appeared to consider the idea, “Yes, I agree. Morale is low. A remembrance service.” He nodded to himself, “Yes, let's do it. I'll put Peter on it.”

  “I’ve read over your research programmes,” Kate glanced at her datapad. “Cancer, radiation sickness, limb regeneration, stem cell therapy, cellular regeneration. As well as some novel plant research. It’s an impressive list. The results could be invaluable for the disaster management my team undertakes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have I missed anything? Any of your biological research?”

  “I would say that covers everything, General.” Had he replied too quickly? Perhaps, thought Kate.

  She changed tack, “My first doctorate was in biology and xenobiology. I’d be very interested to hear where you’ve got to with your research.”

  A message holicon appeared above Masjid’s desk. He looked at it, his brow creasing, “Computer, turn off message alerts.” He looked back to Kate, “How about a tour?”

  Masjid suggested they tour the Research Facility while they talked. He had a sound field put around them, so they could talk in private even while among staff. While they visited the labs and interactive research suites, where the staff were wired into full body and sensory immersion tanks, Kate wondered, like Djembe had done, what would cause someone to stay virtually a prisoner in one underground Colony for so long.

  Staying on a whole planet she could understand. Most of the planets settled in the last eight hundred years had a range of environments, and provided more than enough interest for an average citizen. But this planet, even though it offered the initial excitement of being classified, had little else going for it. Its corridors, though charming at first, were quickly starting to look unfinished. As if the Colony was temporary. The quarters, hers at least, were sparse, functional. The communal areas may be more fun, but with artificial lighting everywhere, where in any of the Colony was the pleasure of sitting under a sky to watch the stars. Or of simply going for a walk? The surface was deadly, inhospitable. Connection to SysNet was heavily censored and there were few visitors. Mu
ch of the work was in mines or in sterile laboratories or AI suites. Kate wondered if the people had grown so distant from a natural environment that they could only relate to artificial worlds. Then she thought about the amount of time she spent on Habitats, and as Masjid talked to her of the work and breakthroughs the Facility had made, she wondered if she wasn’t all that different from the people who had come to Fall.

  She turned the conversation back to the death. “Your researcher, Huriko Maki. What was she working on?”

  They walked passed a number of plants growing in sun tubes. They were twisted, black and barbed. “A couple of programmes. Principally these.” Masjid pointed at the plants, “We are trying to modify plants so they can grow on the surface.”

  “I saw that in the research profile. The water table is seventy kilometres down.”

  Masjid shrugged, “An engineering problem, solvable in a matter of months. The biggest issue is growing plants that can withstand the surface radiation and the storm.”

  “You want to terraform the surface?”

  “We want the option. We are dependent on some food imports and mechanical air scrubbing devices. And we are trapped underground.”

  They want independence and improved shelter, thought Kate. Her mind raced through the consequences. A classified installation wanting to break free from MI oversight. It could hold the Settled Quarters to ransom, withhold the minerals.

  They walked through a laboratory where giant holograms of molecules rotated. Researchers used holicons to manipulate electron flows across their surfaces. She watched Doctor Currie sidelong as he described research progress. Was he so totally absorbed in his research that he couldn't see the dangers it brought?

  She raised an issue about terraform, “Even if you grew vegetation topside, we are still susceptible to the radiation. You'd still be trapped underground.”

  “This is the end of the main lab area. You're right, we are susceptible. But then we have the highly advanced work on cancer treatments, tissue regeneration, that sort of thing. It gives us opportunities.”

  Opportunities. Consequences. “You've given me much to think about. Could I see some of the tissue regeneration research?”

  “Certainly.”

  They moved on, and while Masjid talked, Kate mused on the consequences of this classified research. What else might it be used for? If they had this technology and these advances, what else might they be doing?

  A dry, metallic tick-tock noise echoed around the Colony’s hangar. On Win’s left arm a holographic clockwork watch face appeared, dissembled into small cogs above his wrist, resolving finally into Djembe’s face.

  In the Research Facility, Kate’s arm warmed as a weak glow escaped the cuff of her uniform sleeve. She pulled the sleeve back whilst moving away from Masjid to a secluded area.

  Both in their respective locations looked down at their wrists, where Djembe looked back, along with the face of the other one not present, “We are at one hour. I have interfaced the comms system after some distraction. I’ve been querying the system’s communications relays, Kate. There’s no obvious traffic in or out of here for the past two days or during the incident that references it. Only the encoded messages to MI, which match the reports we have on file. Traffic before the incident appears clean, and there’s nothing immediately obvious in comms storage. There are some side issues for team discussion.”

  “Thank you Djembe. Win, how about you?”

  “I am back in the hangar. I have been to the surface. Environmental monitoring is complete. I couldn’t find any trace of biological remains. I also have something to discuss, but it can wait for our team meeting.”

  “Thank you, boys. I've met the Research Director and reviewed the biological research. Nothing untoward so far. Please proceed to phase two. Win, arrange for a pilot to take you into orbit. Look for ion trails, evidence of ship passage, any tech that doesn’t belong there. Just in case it wasn't exposure and the vendetta rumour has any truth to it. Djembe, continue with comms architecture mapping, look for coded messages or hidden files. Check everything is locked down, and filters are in place for when comms eventually re-open. Lock things down first and ask permission later, on my authority. How long is the next phase?”

  “Four hours.”

  Win's holo highlighted, “No sign of illicit biological research then? Murder?”

  “No. But it's early days, too soon to call it a wild goose chase.”

  “Well, if we are finished, I would like to get up into space. If that's OK?”

  “Certainly. Djembe, can you give us a one hour warning before the end of phase two? Mark the time please.”

  “Phase one ends at standard time ten forty two. Phase two starts at ten forty four. Breaking link.”

  Kate’s arm cooled, the wrist panel dimmed. She pulled the sleeve down, turned off her private sound screen, and re-joined Masjid, “Doctor, can we talk a little more about Huriko's surface work?”

  In the hangar Win watched Djembe’s face change back to a clock face. He smiled as the illusion faded, looked around the hangar for a pilot, quietly talking to himself as he did, “Now we look to the skies!”

  Around the ships, small robots scurried after the hangar crew, helping prepare ships and aircars and equipment. Win walked towards them.

  Chapter 7 – Bestiola Ex Machina

  Deep beneath the Colony Doctor Masjid Currie stood in the gloom, grunting as he closed the tunnel's heavy security door. When its clamps locked into place, deep satisfying thuds whumped through the rock.

  The only light came from a maglev car, activated by its proximity sensors. He stepped into the maglev, its gull wing door chiming as it closed to his back. He wondered how long he could stay down here before someone noticed his absence. The MI team especially may want to see him at a moment's notice, though he thought he should be safe for at least an hour after the meeting with General Leland.

  When he'd been with the General, he'd received a message from Peter. It was written in code; innocuous words to an observer, but they hinted that something significant was happening in the hidden lab area. Masjid needed to see for himself what it was.

  The maglev sped down the mostly lightless track. The tunnel had been bored in secret while the Colony was still being built; it didn't feature on any map. The tunnel door was marked as a storage room entrance in the Colony schematics, which in a way, Masjid thought, was true enough. The maglev track had been ripped from a collapsed mining tunnel linked to the original Colony during the confusion that followed its destruction. Masjid ran his fingers over his seat as the car accelerated into the dark. It was covered with a smooth velvet, which here and there was starting to clump. The wear and tear of serving the Colony’s secret was starting to show.

  Occasionally a safety light streaked by, dividing the distance to his destination. In the dark beyond the car’s windows, Masjid knew lay the hulks of the machines used to carve the tunnels. As far as he knew the machines were still operable. He kept them here in case the tunnel needed reinforcing or extending. Though they waited unseen in the waiting dark, just knowing they were there calmed him. He was nervous of this hidden darkness, moving away from the Colony’s contained comfort to the murky light that lay at journey’s end. The machines’ solidity, their hidden curved and angular weight, gave some imagined structure to the otherwise featureless dark. If the specimens ever escaped or the tunnel collapsed, Masjid comforted himself with the thought that he could defend himself or dig his way out with them. If there was ever an incident down here, whoever was caught in it would be left to die; for how could Daoud acknowledge the tunnel or the need for a large scale rescue operation?

  His thoughts turned to Huriko. Everything that she was had been obliterated. Physically by the alien; by the approaching footnotes of history where she would be lucky to be recorded if first contact was revealed; and by the first interspecies murder. She was dead, too, when she chose her assignment on Fall, leaving behind her birth name and everything tha
t went with that; an obliteration by identity. And now the MI team had reduced her to a tick box on a mission creation form; an ignominious death; a bureaucratic obliteration.

  Guilt cloaked him in a shroud, like the dark around his car. How could he have become involved in an experiment on a human? A colleague, someone he had hand picked for the Colony. It had long occurred to him that Daoud was a master of manipulation. Of creating situations where his desired outcome seemed the most logical. And he'd done it with Huriko. With the pods inactive these last decades and resistant to research, he'd wanted, he said, a similar blastocyst grown in a human host. And whilst in there, the host's biology would hopefully make the hybrid open to genetic manipulation. And if that was the case, then they had a perfect test subject for further biological research. Something not human, a chimera with exotic DNA, on which they could refine their major research. They could give it cancer, watch it take hold of the human DNA, and test their advanced cures. Radiation burns, amputation. The ethics had become easier the more he'd looked at the pods. They were mindless lumps of DNA. Daoud had presented a seductive case. And with the memory wipe procedures, Compound X and Sophie's knowledge of suggestive language, the process had looked fool proof.

  A distance-marking light flashed by.

  Practical matters crept in to his mind. How would he replace Huriko? It took over six standard months for applicants to complete the testing required to work on classified programmes. Then there was a further six months to a year to dismantle their previous life and ensure their new identity was in place. That gave him a standard year to wait in the best case. Undoubtedly there were already people going through the programme, ready to be assigned to different classified projects, but there was no guarantee his science programmes would get the recognition he thought they deserved. Or that the candidates were of the right calibre and background.