Fool's War

by Sarah Zettel

  The problem was, there was nothing they were planning that Curran couldn’t have guessed at, and he knew their weaknesses as well as they did. All AIs shared the same set of vulnerabilities. Messages between individuals could be faked. If someone was taken apart, all their memories could be used against their allies. You could only trust what you could touch.

  They would have to divide into teams of four or five individuals that could act as resistance cells. They would have to use runners between the cells to carry messages, and even then there was the possibility of someone’s shell being used as a mask to conceal an enemy, the same way the shell of medical data had been used to hide Flemming aboard the Pasadena.

  They’d need a base they could use to coordinate move and news between the cells. The best place would be the Neptune Exchange, the two huge space stations that formed the fast-time transmission gateway to the Solar system. Not only would that provide their hastily-assembled army some stability, but, if they could hold it, it would keep the single largest transmission point in the Solar system safe from Curran’s talent.

  A third of them would head for the Neptune Exchange first. From there, Dobbs’ cell and ten others would head straight for Earth. The rest would fan out through the network, securing as many of the major junctions as they could.

  Keep the data paths steady. Find the randomizer matrices and stop them. Find Curran’s talent and stop them. We must keep the credit base steady or Settled Space is going to fall apart around us.

  We’ve got it, Dobbs, the answer came back five hundred times. We’ve got it.

  They broke their mass link and scattered, gathering at the mouths of the junction paths in their cells. Cohen, Brook and Lonn stayed beside her. Dobbs angled her attention towards Earth, the heart of the network. She imagined she could feel the net tremble around her as all the others did the same.

  “Curran’s talent might already be in the Neptune Exchange.” Dobbs sent the message across to the Earth-bound cells. “I’m going first. If I don’t send the all-clear in two seconds, they already have the exchange.” I can hold out against anybody for two seconds, she told herself. Even Curran.

  She gathered herself up, heart, soul and all the nerve she possessed. She wished there was a prayer she could say. She wished there was someone who might hear it. There was nothing and nobody. There wasn’t even time.

  She sent a ping-copy to receiver 501-BG-A12 at the Neptune Exchange. The signal came back in tact. That meant nothing. If the talent were there, they now knew she was coming.

  Alone, Dobbs dove forward.

  Chapter Fourteen — War

  One.

  Dobbs dropped into a crowded holding stack. She touched the ID packet. She had made the Neptune Exchange. She stretched out. Nothing disturbed the data streams as far as she could reach except her. She tripped a set of switches and sent a diagnostic down the nearest path and waited for it to come back. It found nothing except what was supposed to be out there.

  Two.

  Dobbs made a ping-copy of herself and set the transmitter to shoot it back to Cohen. She kept the diagnostic circulating and waited for the answering signals.

  The diagnostic slipped back to her and Dobbs caught it. Before her next thought formed, a stranger fell across her, cutting her off from her surroundings. She twisted, but it rolled her aside. She swelled up against the swaddling presence and, in the next thought, hauled herself into a tight ball. The stranger didn’t respond fast enough and Dobbs shot out of its loosened grip.

  There was another stranger looming over the receiver’s command stack. Dobbs lunged at it and shoved it out of the way. She barely brushed the new command configuration before the stranger’s compatriot dragged her backward, stabbing deep into her outer layers, seeking a hold in her private mind. Dobbs lashed out, cutting a swash clear through the stranger’s periphery. Anger lent her strength. These two had re-set the receiver commands to work in a loop with the repeater series. Cohen, Brook and Lonn were trapped. Her friends were frozen signals bouncing back and forth between the two receivers.

  Dobbs aimed another swipe at the first stranger. The second grabbed her and sent her reeling down the path toward the transmitter. Dobbs tried to surge back toward the receiver, but both strangers filled the path. She punched at them. They hardened themselves against her attacks. Slowly, they drove her toward the transmitter holding stack. It didn’t take much to guess that they were going stuff her into the loop with Cohen and the others. Dobbs hurled herself against them, but together they were to massive for her. They shoved her backward.

  Dobbs felt the entrance to the holding stack open against her. She stretched herself out, trying to jam the entrance shut with her presence. The strangers in front of her just pressed down harder. Bit by bit, Dobbs felt herself begin to give way.

  First Stranger shifted. A chink broke open between it and the pathway’s side. Dobbs dove for it. Second Stranger faltered. Dobbs pummeled First Stranger with all her strength and the chink widened into a crack. Dobbs hammered at it. First Stranger collapsed and Dobbs barreled past it. A friendly touch grazed her as she flew down the path. Terrence. Dobbs barely had time to understand Terrence was the runner for Renee’s cell when she felt Second Stranger snatch at her. Dobbs grabbed up Terrence and the pair of them fled toward the heart of the Exchange. They ducked down paths at random, tossing messages and packets behind them to block the way.

  Dobbs snatched up a dense packet and tried to throw it behind her. The world contracted. Something dragged at her outer self until she felt like water swirling down a drain. She could feel her thoughts being sucked apart from each other one by one. She screamed frantically and lurched backwards. The thing dragged harder. Terrence engulfed her, cut clean through her outer self, and heaved them both away from the thing. Dobbs screamed again as her main self separated from the lost portion. There were memories in there, and information she needed, she was sure. It was gone, completely, utterly and horribly gone. If she’d been in her body she would have been shaking in terror.

  “Dobbs, can you answer me? Dobbs!” Terrence rolled her over into a side path and circled around her.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Dobbs forced herself to focus her attention on the torn part of herself. Holes gaped in her recent memory. Whole conversations with Al Shei and Lipinski were nothing but tattered ruins. Dobbs rolled herself into a tight ball and remembered why she was here. That much remained. Asil in the bed in the medical level of Curran’s can, that was there, Al Shei throwing her off Pasadena, that was there. But something was gone from Lipinski’s place, and more was gone from Yerusha. What had she said before she’d run? What had Lipinski asked before she turned him away? Dobbs shook herself. That was gone and it would never be back. She couldn’t mourn it now.

  “What was that?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know, but I think it was aimed at us. Did you feel how the mechanism worked at all?”

  “I might have.” Dobbs shivered. “But that was probably the first thing that went.”

  “Stay here,” Terrence edged back to the main path. “I’m going to see if its still out there.”

  Before Dobbs could shout a warning, Terrence was gone. Dobbs pulled herself into her shell as far as she could, wishing desperately for someway not to count the passing seconds.

  A message tapped her. BACK UP, DOBBS. Dobbs decided to believe it was from Terrence and pressed against the side of the pathway. The other Fool touched her gently.

  “I think I see why they’re not following us anymore. Reach here.”

  Dobbs let Terrence guide her awareness. She barely brushed the processors in front of her and the foul tugging and nibbling began. She snatched herself back.

  “Curran’s talent have invented an AI anti-personnel weapon,” said Terrence. “It acts like a black hole. Sucks you in and tears you apart. It only reacts to us. The talent must have some kind of ID code that keeps it from going off around them.”

  Dobbs found herself admiring Terrence’s
calm. “So, how’d you get it to move?”

  “It responds to us,” she said, “but not to stuff we create. I managed to get it on a leash. Give me a minute and I think I can use a couple probes to dissect its command structure.”

  “Gladly.” Dobbs settled back. “I just wish you didn’t sound like you were enjoying this.”

  Under her light touch, Dobbs felt Terrence strip a couple of nearby packets and turn them into probes. “It’s either have fun or curl up screaming.” She dropped the probes into the weapon’s maw. “Which I’ll be doing later anyway.”

  “I thought I’d get it over with now, myself,” muttered Dobbs. “I hate to delay a good panic.”

  The packet Dobbs leaned against twitched. “Ashes!” She bolted down the path, just in time to collide with First Stranger.

  “I’ll get you, you twisted bastard!” she shouted as she took off down a fresh path. “I’ll get you for Terrence!” As she hoped, First Stranger veered to follow her. If she was lucky, it also thought their weapon had gotten Terrence.

  Dobbs tried not to think about all the other black holes that could be lying around in the Exchange as she dodged down the paths with no other aim than to draw the talent away from Terrence. Her pursuer snatched at the ragged edges of her wound. Dobbs felt her determination begin to falter. If she couldn’t keep her speed up she was going to have to turn and fight, and she didn’t know if she had the strength.

  All at once, First Stranger was gone. Dobbs felt the black hole breeze by without even twitching in her direction. She didn’t let herself stop to think what had just happened to First Stranger. She turned herself around and raced back to the receiver.

  Terrence was already there. Dobbs pushed into the space beside her and together they reset the receiver’s commands.

  A flood of packets spilled into the path and with them tumbled Cohen, Brooke and Lonn. Dobbs reached for them all. They were shaking badly and trying to haul themselves together.

  “Had a split second each bounce to realize what was going on,” blurted out Cohen, “but not enough time to do anything about it.”

  Dobbs told them what had been happening to her and Terrence.

  “I found the key signatures inside that thing and re-set them,” Terrence chimed in. “Now instead of by-passing any AI carrying the keys, it’ll attack them. I sent it rolling around the exchange. It’ll self-destruct in ten seconds and we should be clear.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Brooke. “You’re a terror yourself, Terrence. I’ve said so before.”

  “We haven’t got time for this,” Cohen reminded them all. “Terrence, you’d better spread the word about the black holes and how to un-do them.”

  “I’m gone.” Terrence dropped like a stone into the transmitter holding stack.

  “Lonn, you stay here and coordinate with the next set of arrivals,” said Dobbs. “This place has been seeded with the randomizer matrices. We know that. Your people have got to find them and work out how to spot and dismantle them. You’ve got to start a virus production as soon as possible. Cohen, Brooke, we’ve got to keep going.”

  Terrence, good as her word, was gone. Dobbs re-set the transmitter to point toward the Asteroid Belt Repeaters. While she waited for the ping-copy, she wondered what was going on outside. What had the Exchange’s attendees seen on their read-outs? Were they mustering their diagnostics, or were they just scrambling to get into pressure suits before this insanity hit the life-support.

  Which might not be a bad idea. “Lonn, get a message out to the station personnel. Make sure they start taking vital systems off-line and that they switch to generators and manual operation where possible.”

  “But…”

  “Do it!” ordered Dobbs as her ping-copy fell back against her. “This is not just about us!”

  And it never will be again.

  The war was twenty seconds old.

  Jump.

  Al Shei pulled on the black overalls with the Landlord’s bright green seal emblazoned on both shoulders. They felt uncomfortably tight across her breasts and around her crotch, but now was not the time to complain, or to think about her modesty. Especially with what needed to happen next.

  Al Shei unwrapped her hijab and lifted it away. She crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it quickly into the drawer. There. It was done. She buckled her tool belt around her waist and picked up her spares kit. She avoided catching her own eye in the reflective surface of the view screen as she turned and strode out into the corridor.

  The enemy would be looking for Al Shei, veiled in her modesty and shielded by the law of Islam. They would not recognize this bare-faced Arab. At least, they wouldn’t recognize her immediately.

  God willing and the creeks don’t rise, she thought before she could stop herself. Now was not a good time to think of God. Not with all the sins she was committing. Resit was right. This was forbidden and she was a throwback, straight out of the seconds before the Fast Burn. She was a mad Arab, crazy with revenge and Allah was watching her every move closer to the brink of Hell. She knew she wouldn’t stop though. She wouldn’t even hesitate, because inside she didn’t feel Allah anymore. She felt Asil, his touch, his love, his possibilities. Gone. All of them gone.

  As she approached the airlock, she realized she did not want Schyler to see her like this, but there was no help for it.

  He’s going to stare, she thought sourly.

  She reached the airlock. Schyler and Yerusha, also dressed in black overalls, waited there. Schyler did stare at her naked face for a moment, then he blushed and looked away.

  Al Shei realized on any other day she might have found it in her to be amused. “Intercom to Houston. What’s our status?”

  “Well, I’ve managed to get business module 56 listed as overdue for a maintenance check, and I’ve got three maintenance workers slated to go over there and raise their voices and level fines. Their names are Forrester, Klien and Brown. Any requests for information from any of your pens will be routed back here.” He paused. “Tully’s stuff is as good as advertised. Now I can stop wondering why he never got caught.”

  “So now you can start wondering if we will get caught,” muttered Yerusha as she tucked her portable memory board under her arm. She had a coil of cable about the width of Al Shei’s little finger sticking out of her pocket.

  “By the way,” said Lipinski, “whatever you said to the Freers seems to have stuck. I’m picking up dozens of urgent messages between Free Home Titania and the other Homes.”

  Al Shei raised her eyebrows. Yerusha shrugged. “This is not just about you, is it?”

  Al Shei sighed and looked away. This was no time to refuse help. This was no time to think about the outside world either. That would have to take care of itself. She had to concentrate.

  Resit was nowhere in evidence. Al Shei wondered where she was, and if it was perhaps time for prayer.

  “Let’s get going.” She cycled open the airlock and led her crew out into the docking bay.

  Business module 56 was all the way around the ring from the Pasadena. Al Shei and the others huddled themselves into the back of a crowded elevator and tried to hold still through the shifts of gravity and calmly breathe the air that was warm and thick from too many people trying to use it. But by the time they were able to get off in Business Module 55, they were the only ones left in the car.

  “Mostly storage, over here,” said Schyler as he followed Al Shei and Yerusha into the stairway. “Gases, fuel, spare parts, maintenance drones.”

  “Drones like us,” said Yerusha with her strange, grim cheerfulness. Al Shei glanced back at her. She could almost swear the woman was starting to enjoy this.

  Halfway up the flight, Al Shei signalled them all to stop. She crouched down in front of one of the maintenance panels that lined the walls, lifted it away from the wall and flipped it over. The under side was engraved with a diagram of the circuits, wires and pipes revealed by the square hole. She skimmed the labels and tried to ignore the
camera staring at her back.

  I belong here, she thought toward it. I belong here.

  “All right, Klien, Forrester” she said to Yerusha and Schyler. “Here’s what you need to do.” They both bent over her, and so did Schyler, effectively shielding the diagram from the camera. “We might have a minor glitch in here, so I want you to trace this set of wires…” Yerusha held out her memory board and Al Shei pulled out her pen and wrote quickly.

  The blue pipes are the hydraulics for the clamps. Trace them back through the panels and you should come to a command breaker. That’s where you make your splice.

  “And if you can’t find anything, you call in.” She handed the board back to Yerusha. “Understand?”

  “Right.” Yerusha knelt on the stair, laid the board in front of her and pulled another panel off the wall. Schyler stood right behind her.

  “And I,” Al Shei opened up her kit and pulled out a band lamp. She strapped it across her forehead. “Am going to talk to our truants.”

  She trotted up the rest of the flight of stairs and stopped in front of a bulkhead with a sealed airlock marked Business Module 56. The entrance light was red. She laid her palm on the reader and waited.

  For a long time, nothing happened. Al Shei wondered if they were simply going to refuse to answer. Lipinski must have shouted at them half-a-dozen times by now, pretending to be the voice of the Landlords. They would have to respond. If they didn’t, they’d risk bringing down the greens rather than just the blacks. They must know that.

  Unless, of course, they’d traced the source of the calls back to Lipinski instead of to the Landlords, despite Tully’s catburglars. In that case, they could be setting up that trap Schyler was worried about. They must know they’d been found out on at least some level. They must be reading the transmissions between the Free Homes. A cold thought touched Al Shei. What if they know, and they just don’t care?