Jamie's response was quick and vehement. "I couldn't do that. Mixing body fluids was how I got in trouble to begin with."
"What could I give you that's worse than what you've already got?"
"Peter, I'm not worried about me. I'm worried about you."
I'm sure I would enjoy the viral snack, but we can't allow him to think you're immune to HRIS. You could allow a drop of blood to fall from your wound onto his. Two or three microliters is all I need to boot a new alternate.
Peter looked around. It was more than a padded cell; the prison was a padded city. Not an edge in the place. Ahh, well. He bit his thumbnail at the center, and tore a strip away to one edge, leaving a sharp point. He dug the point hard into the soft flesh of his forearm and jerked it sharply to one side. He got the wound he wanted, but was surprised at how much it had hurt.
|Hey, 9! You asleep or something?|
I am in awe of the ritual, and wouldn't think of interfering with the experience.
Peter shook his head, and had to work for a few seconds to suppress his grin. His face was grave as he stood to face Jamie on the top bunk, and held his bleeding arm up. "I can let my blood fall on you, and there'd be no danger to me."
"This is all pretty silly."
"I threw off H722N241. I was up and around in two days. It worked." Jamie's eyes met his for several long seconds. Confusion, amusement, contempt…and hope? "You sure don't have much to lose," Peter said.
Jamie pulled himself up to a half sitting position. He put the back of his right forearm to his mouth and bit hard, pulling back at the skin to tear it. Peter winced; that had to hurt—not that Jamie could be a stranger to pain.
Without any further words Peter held his arm over Jamie's and squeezed his wound. A large drop of blood hung suspended for a moment and dropped, hitting Jamie's ragged wound dead-on. Carefully, almost reverently, Jamie rubbed Peter's blood into his wound with the ball of his thumb.
He looked up. "Now what do I do?"
"Now you're a warrior. Sleep. That's all you can do. Maybe you'll hear my uncle's spirit speak to you."
"Did he ever speak to you?"
Peter paused and considered. "I think he did, once. I don't know Navaho so it's hard to tell whether he was talking Indian or English, but what he said sounded a little like, 'Kick ass. Just don't miss.'"
Jamie laughed, letting himself back down to his pillow. "You are such a bullshitter."
Peter sat back on his own cot. "It's hard advice to follow. Trust me."
"Peter...um, thanks. I haven't laughed this much in months."
"Laughing is good."
"It is. Thanks."
I am impressed, the Sangruse Device told him, even though there are no aboriginal Americans anywhere in your family. You should write stone dramas.
|My uncle was an Italian deli owner. If I told Jamie I wanted to give him the blood of an Italian warrior, he would have died laughing, six months too soon.|
I've just made you a friend for life.
It seemed an odd statement for the Sangruse Device, which had always been a creature of few words, and no more action than was necessary. Peter nodded silent agreement to the creature living its distributed life inside him. That he was the Device's protector, romantic a notion as it was, seemed absurd on the slightest examination. Still, that it would move so quickly to make him a friend in such a strange fashion puzzled Peter—unless the Sangruse Device were in need of a friend itself. But how useful had he been to the creature within him, and to his Society? He had ridden roughshod over Cy's misgivings, and hadn't handled the graveyard encounter itself especially well. Had Peter gone for the wall instead of pursuing the assassin, they might have escaped.
Perhaps, in the wake of the Diamond Necropolis fiasco, the Sangruse Device was hedging its bets. Perhaps it was betting that living inside a completely unknown individual was better than living inside Peter Novilio alone.
And that was a sobering thought indeed.
In only seconds, the Sangruse Device had closed the little gash in his arm and sealed it invisibly. Peter licked the rest of the blood clean, and reached over to the wall to pull out the tombstone on its pivot. It came to life immediately with twenty different windows, each holding a different entertainment, from a swing concert to a porn show. He tapped fingertips on the bottom of the stone, brought up a keyspot window, and tilted the stone to a better typing position.
TO: Laura.Rocci://gneiss.optics.tech.com.il.us
FROM:
Hey girl—
I just got sentenced to Hell for something you don't want to know about. We get shipped out day after tomorrow. So I guess I won't be taking you to see the Black Folds on Saturday. I'll be twenty-three light years away by then. Kind of a haul. I won't miss the traffic, and I certainly won't miss the Canadians, but I'm sure as hell gonna miss you. As it were.
If I break out, heh-heh, I'll expect you to marry me. If I don't break out, marry Cy.
Take that out. All these messages are monitored. You've given Cy enough trouble already.
Peter wiped the offending phrase with a swish of his index finger.
If I don't break out, marry somebody who isn't such a damned fool. They're out there. Just look a little harder next time.
You deserved better.
Aren't you going to tell her you love her?
|I'd rather tell her the truth.|
Good luck. I'm sorry if I hurt you.
Sincerely, Peter.
The message duly sent, Peter brought up the Plasmanet encyclopedia window and requested the standard entry on OVODS.
I can tell you anything you need to know about Hell, the Sangruse Device said with all-too-familiar condescension.
|I hate audio hyperlinks,| Peter subvocalized. |Just shut up and let me be miserable in peace.| Peter read:
OVODS
(Offworld Violent Offenders Detention Station) 1Earth's Prison Planet
On February 4, 2119, IConsensus appropriated 2.2 trillion globes to fund the Offworld Violent Offenders Detention Station at the new colony on Zeta Tucanae 2. 1Earth First Chair Violet Kolze signed the bill with enthusiasm, but expressed regret that the human family had not yet succeeded in eradicating violence. In her address of February 8, 2119 she swore that whatever was required, 1Earth must demonstrate that the Zero Tolerance for Violence provision of the 1Earth Constitution was not an empty promise.
Over the next five years, nearly 100,000 violent offenders were offered a settlement allowing them freedom and jobs on Zeta Tucanae 2 in exchange for constructing the facility there. 10,000 engineers, technicians, managers and government officials joined the project, whose goal was to create a self-sufficient society that needed no regular supply from Earth.
OVODS' ultimate goal was to allow trusted offenders to act as warders and local government officials so that no 1Earth citizens would be required to live their lives amidst a huge population of violent individuals. Offenders would be sent to the planet's surface using inexpensive one-way composite lifting bodies that would automatically land on runways, and 1Earth citizens would make only occasional supervisory stops.
Concerns were raised by the North American Democratic Party that the technology behind the Hilbert stardrive was widely understood and relatively easy to duplicate, and that allowing a population of what could eventually be millions of violent offenders to live without government supervision was an unacceptable risk. Even one crude starship equipped with a Hilbert stardrive could be used as a weapon to blind or kill thousands of people by energizing the drive at the edge of the atmosphere over a large city. The Democrats assembled a coalition that threatened to halt the project unless permanent, armed 1Earth supervision over OVODS was guaranteed.
In 2121, researchers at the prestigious Eric Drexler Nanotechnology Laboratory at Arizona State University in Phoenix announced their plan for a radical solution to the deadlock: a revolutionary design for a self-replicating, environmentally hardened nanodevice
that would prevent any escape from OVODS. The Magnetotropic Geospecific Internment Device (MGID) was a bacterium-sized nanomachine that used built-in magnetic field sensors to locate electrical conductors carrying current. Once an MGID found and moved to a current-carrying conductor (using nanocilia and a flagellum) it would use both conventional chemical and molecular mechanisms to corrode the conductor and interrupt the flow of current. Once the MGIDs were established in the Zeta Tucanae 2 biosphere, no electrical devices would be operable for more than a few hours at best, preventing a high-tech society on the planet and thus any covert effort to recreate the computationally intensive Hilbert stardrive.
Peter scratched his chin and considered the photomicrograph of an MGID. It resembled a surreal spermatozoon, having a tesselated ellipsoidal head and long, whiplike flagellum. Surrounding the pale gray head were two darker bands following the long axis at 90 degrees to one another: the magnetic field sensors that allowed the device to zero in on electrical conductors. In the full view the whole surface of the head appeared slightly fuzzy; an inset window showed a magnified view of the surface, where nanocilia and clawlike nano-manipulators alternated in an evil-looking forest.
|Ugly bastard,| Peter commented.
On the contrary. It is a brilliant, elegant design. I have always wanted to fight one.
|Fight? You, master of all things small, fight? Does a carrot fight a paring knife?|
You will not see it stated officially, but the MGID was hardened against more than simply radiation, oxygen, and other reactive agents. It was hardened against attack by other nanodevices. During the device's development, two teams worked in parallel. Each was instructed to add defensive and offensive nanomechanisms to their designs. The two designs were played against one another in death matches to see which could destroy the other. Eventually one team could not enhance their design as to vanquish the other, and admitted defeat. The MGID is a nanopredator.
It was a creepy notion. |A nanopredator.|
Yes. If one invaded your bloodstream and were to detect any of my nanons, it would attack instantly.
|You'd win, of course.|
You should hope that I will.
Peter shuddered and continued reading.
A safety mechanism was built into the MGID: It sensed at all times the low-level planetary magnetic field, and if moved beyond the planet's near magnetopause would self-destruct. This would prevent the MGID from being "tracked back" to Earth in 1Earth starcraft.
OVODS was re-tooled as a neo-Victorian society, based on petrochemical fuels, natural gas, centrally generated steam and air pressure, paper publications, and other innovative low-tech devices. Perhaps a year before its completion, Chicago Tribune columnist Joshua J. Ripkin applied the nickname Hell to OVODS and Zeta Tucanae 2, predicting fatefully that the MGIDs would not only make escape impossible, but official visits as well.
OVODS was formally dedicated on December 21, 2138. Ripkin wrote several additional columns attacking OVODS, including one that described graphically what Ripkin predicted would happen if the MGIDs were ever to be let loose on Earth. In the furor over the column, Ripkin was relieved of his editorial duties and forced into retirement, but most credit his vivid writing with spawning the backlash against nanotechnology that led to its suppression in 2161.
No women offenders were transported to OVODS until several courts ruled that women were not exempt from the provisions of ZTV. Between one half of one percent and one percent of all transportees have been women since then. All have been subject to tubal ligation before transportation, to prevent innocent children from being born at OVODS.
The MGIDs were finally released into Zeta Tucanae 2's biosphere in 2142. By then OVODS was self-sustaining, under the nearly complete control of trusted offenders, with only a small supervisory detachment of 1Earth citizens. By 2145, there was growing concern that the supposedly MGID-"hardened" shuttle craft were vulnerable to MGID damage, even after as little as two hours on the ground. After several incidents, it was decided early in 2146 to evacuate all remaining 1Earth citizens and allow the trusted offenders to operate OVODS. On July 16, 2147, the last shuttle of citizens lifted off. No one has visited OVODS and returned since that time. Transported offenders are "dropped" to the surface in unpowered single-use lifting body landers.
That, of course, is a government-ordered redaction. The second-to-last shuttle malfunctioned at max boost and burned up in the atmosphere, killing all 88 citizens aboard. The last shuttle malfunctioned on the ground and never lifted at all. No attempt was made to rescue them. The government abandoned those last 72 citizens on Hell.
|I never knew that.|
Very few do. Covering tracks is what 1Earth does best.
|So Ripkin was right.|
Ripkin is why we hide.
The short summary ended with pages of additional references beyond the ubiquitous hyperlinks. Peter followed a few, bringing up images of Hell during the construction of the OVODS cities, and diagrams of the shuttles, starships, and single-use landers created for OVODS. He was still reading when the lights went out, and realized he had completely forgotten the evening meal.
Peter rubbed his eyes and swung the tombstone back into its slot. Jamie was snoring softly in the upper bunk, awakening from fitful sleep to cough at intervals.
|Any other advice?|
We will be there as long as you live. Whatever Hell turns out to be, I suggest that you learn to like it.
|Thanks. I was planning on being miserable for the next fifty years. Hey, do you think they have aircraft there?|
Possible. Unlikely.
Peter rolled the challenge around in his head. What sort of aircraft could you build without an electrical system? Before dropping off to sleep, Peter spent a moment's reverie imagining something like a Bleriot monoplane with a diesel engine, open cockpit letting the furious wind rearrange his black curls as he performed loops and rolls.
|Hah. We'll damned well see!|
3. A Ticket Back
Someone was speaking. Peter awoke from a dream of flying one of Cy Aliotta's C-404 mach freighters between mesas and pillars of red-hot iron, pursued by something evil that he could not see, something that, like the landscape itself, was so hot that it was on fire.
Hell, heh.
"Peter Novilio."
"Yeah."
"Please come with us."
The lights in the cell were on. Two men in gray SIS fatigues stood in front of the cell door. One had a standard SIS sidearm at loose ready.
Peter struggled against the fuzziness in his head. He was hungry and dehydrated. One of the two men leaned him against the wall and frisked him thoroughly. The other restrained Peter's arms in a muff and locked a prisoner bozo over his nose. He then pointed to the bozo controller locked to his own forearm.
"You know how these work?"
Peter nodded. "I get more than five meters from you and the bozo puts sleepy gas up my nose. Hey, I surf the stone as much as anybody."
"Walk in front of me, follow Mark. Do what I tell you to."
"You guys work for SIS, don't you? I was an SIS agent once."
"We know. And we're not here to answer questions."
"I guess." Peter turned toward the door.
"Peter," Jamie whispered from the top bunk. Peter turned back to him. He was sitting up straight on the cot. Peter realized he had not heard Jamie cough since turning in for the night. "Thanks. I feel better already. Kick ass."
"Right."
"Don't miss."
"Gotcha. Hey, see you on Hell."
"I hope!"
Peter felt a hand like a vise on his arm. He turned and left the cell. The cell block was still closed and dark. Peter spotted a clock. 4:52.
Cy Aliotta may have struck a deal for your release.
|I doubt it. That's against his oath. His blood wouldn't let him.|
The Nautonnier could authorize it.
Peter didn't reply. The thought of the Sangruse Society's shadowy leader (whom Peter
had never met and was unlikely ever to meet) trading for the freedom of a foot soldier still in training was close to absurd—especially given the stupidity of Peter's crime. More likely the Nautonnier would order the teaching of Peter's case as a warning to new initiates.
|Be quiet. You're depressing me.|
Deep beneath the prison somewhere, a gray car waited, doors open. The SIS men placed Peter in the passenger front seat and strapped him in, then got into the rear seat.
Peter recognized the model; it was a typical military jorg as used by the Special Implementers Service, for which Peter had worked during his public service stint after college. The Special Implementers were the ones charged with tracking "high leverage" risks to peace and societal unity—including suppressed technology. In fact, Peter had been recruited by the Sangruse Society because of his SIS experience, shallow though it had been.
In a deepening funk, Peter watched through tinted windows as the jorg emerged from beneath the prison complex and threaded its way through quiet predawn streets. The jorg waited its turn at Wolf Road and entered the Eisenhower jorgway, heading east toward the center of Chicago. Against the glare of the August sun breaking free of Lake Michigan's summer fog he saw the Illinois, seat of 1Earth in Chicago and center of American governance. It had been the tallest building on Earth for one hundred fifty years and was likely to remain so; building such structures today was far too risky for the increasingly reactionary Ottawa regime.
Frank Lloyd Wright had designed the mile-high Illinois in 1956. The great man had known it was ahead of its time, but it would have surprised Wright to know just how much ahead of its time—and saddened him that it had been reduced to hosting the Canadian ruling class who now ruled all the world that was worth ruling at all.
The building was all out of scale in the view from the jorg; impossibly slender, with angular terraces every hundred stories from which hanging gardens sprung. Two of the terraces, Peter knew, bore airpads for the many government agencies headquartered in the building. Special Implementers had sixty of the Illinois's 500 stories. Peter had had an office on the 271st floor for awhile during his stint.
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