GOOD EVENING, MISTER CLAUSEN.
The blue-white light was clean against the silent darkness. He leaned against the cold glow, his shadow thrown back over the world, like a stick figure cut against the sun.
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WARM YOU UP AFTER A LONG DAY IN THE COLD?
He laughed, and cried, as his sole companion tried to make conversation. The brilliant text faded, to show a steaming cup of coffee on a fireside table. “No, I’m fine.” He answered, and rested his head against his arm, and the frozen slab of the advert board.
HOW ABOUT A NEW WARDROBE? SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!
“Do I look that bad?” He asked.
The advert board had no answer.
“Show me.” He said.
A list of slacks, sporty jackets, and button-down shirts rolled over the screen. Bright colors, all of them.
“Not me, pal.”
The screen wiped clean. HOW ABOUT OUR TACTICAL COLLECTION FOR THE SELF-DEFENSE ENTHUSIAST? Army surplus gear and civilian-spec khakis spun into view, deals on retention gear and last-gen optics rolling past.
“Got plenty.”
HOW CAN I HELP YOU?
“You can’t.” Clausen answered. He took a step back, then asked, “Can I place a call?”
COMMUNICATIONS LINKS ARE CURRENTLY OFFLINE.
“How the hell could I buy something, then?”
BACK ORDER.
Clausen sighed, and kept walking. The lights behind him flickered, brighter and more urgent, before falling back to black.
He wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.
One thing.
He would have changed one thing.
Sarah hadn’t left him. He’d left her.
He’d run away, like a coward.
She’d wanted to understand. She would have understood. Brian Clausen always stood alone. He was strong. He was a rock. He'd walked away, and he'd pretended he hadn't seen her cry. He'd pretended he was fine. Some men liked to pass the blame. Others liked to hold it tight, and use their guilt as an excuse for their failings. He’d run away, and called it sacrifice.
For the mission. For the Charter.
Don’t sell yourself cheap.
The Colonel had told him that. A man was more than his job. Duty was more than a mission.
Clausen had missed the fucking point.
The boat had sailed, the bridge burned.
Not true.
There was a way out, but it was one he’d never take.
He could walk away. He could slip the quarantine, hop a bus, and show up outside her house. Hat in hand, he could fall to his knees and beg her mercy. Pity the fool who thought himself an island. Of course, if he did that, he wouldn’t be the man she had loved, would he? It was a cutting, cruel irony. For a moment, in the bitter cold, he allowed himself a moment to wish. In that other world, he was a different man, one who wasn’t driven ever forward, who didn’t try and shoulder every crushing burden.
That wasn’t him.
He owed her, more than that. She wouldn’t want that from him, that kind of broken, crawling, prostrate man. That wasn’t him.
He’d give her anything, except to walk away.
One last letter. An apology, not for leaving, but for not letting her inside his armor.
No mourning now, just regret. There was the mission, there was tomorrow.
He had to be strong enough.
Like armor, his mental fortress clicked together. Pain was the forge, duty the quench. He pulled the searing steel closed, let it case him safely inside.
His hand struck the door to his housing. It was another flophouse, ratty door hanging from bad hinges at the edge of dronetown. He gripped it, harder than he meant to, and nearly ripped it from the wall.
Inside the apartment, was the impossible.
Sarah sat on his bed.
Her hair hung around her shoulders like a halo. She rolled his ring between her fingers. She rested her elbows on her knees, stared at the glint of the silver under the dim light. The door hit the wall, and she looked up, and smiled, sweet over sadness, but her eyes were bright.
Clausen staggered, as if shot. His armor was shattered.
Everything he’d worked through, just moments before, was gone. Constructs and reasons, carefully laid and reasoned, blazed to molten slag. This was impossible. Any later, he’d have been set into his course. Any earlier, and the pain wouldn’t have boiled high enough to break. In this terrible, wonderful now, his entire center was gone, spinning away from him with that smile.
He stumbled into the room, the door open behind him. He reached for her, like he’d seen a ghost.
Why? How? Those should have been his thoughts. He could hear them, distantly echoing from a lifetime of training and discipline. Be rational. Be tactical. He should have secured the perimeter. He should have evaluated the threat, checked for a trap. He should have snatched her up, shoved her into the first cab, and sent her as far from this pit as possible.
He fell to his knees, head between her knees, hands in hers, and sobbed.
“I’m sorry.”
He heard the words, not sure who’d spoken them.
“I’m sorry! I never should have- please, God, I’m sorry!” Those were his words, now, stuttering, halting, and clogged with tears.
He’d never been a man of words. If he’d had them, he’d have said them, long ago. He was a man of action, and he’d let them speak. He’d walked away, into the Airship, into hell itself.
He tried to find those words, now, “I tried-”
“I know.” That was all she said, as she held him close. “I know.”
#
“The goal of institutional military training is to strip a man of his individuality, to shatter – albeit temporarily – his will, and replace it with a unit-centered consciousness. The individual is dropped into the fire and purified, over and over, until only the soldier remains. A competent program can turn flesh and blood into steel. I, however, have no interest in mere metal.
“I desire a far more potent warrior than a modern golem. What I intend is the reintegration of the fully formed mind, the completed individual, into the established structure of the unit. In this way, a purified soldier is no longer a weapon of steel, but a razor of will, to be wielded against my opponents. I destroy in order to create. I reforge to utilize. Know this, remember this, and actualize upon it.”
Clausen knew there was an entire category of weapons, colloquially referred to as “smart” - smart bombs, smart guns, smart bullets - the official terminology was “precision guided”. The purpose of these weapons was to seek out breakpoints in a target, and to carry out effects far beyond their indicated payload, through the accurate delivery of force.
That was exactly what Berenson had done to him, Clausen knew. Berenson had told Rutman about that bar, left him a hint to check it out. He’d snagged Sarah out from under the umbrella of the safe zones and smuggled her into dronetown. Two little taps, right on Clausen’s psyche, delivered directly upon his breakpoints. Precision guided emotional warfare.
It was three days before Clausen ran Berenson down. The genejob had, of course, gone evasive, vanishing like a hunted animal under high sun. Clausen finally cornered him in the tenement boiler room, and blocked the door until Berenson acknowledged him.
“So, Mister Clausen, are you here to kill me?” Berenson asked.
“I thought about it.” Clausen admitted, “What the hell were you thinking, bringing her here?”
“Perhaps I simply wanted to panic Mister Raschel, when the woman you so eloquently convinced him to protect, disappeared overnight?” Berenson offered with a smirk. “I imagine it made his breakfast quite stressful.”
“Bullshit.”
Berenson laughed, then admitted, “I need you at the top of your mental game, which meant I needed to clean up your biological issues.”
“Well, thank you.” Clausen said.
“For what? Cleaning up my own mess? Framing you? Killing your mentor?
Killing your friends? For ruining your life?” Berenson asked. “I mean, some people enjoy pain, but not the emotional varieties that I specialize in.”
“Cute.” Clausen said. His voice grew harsh, and he added, “Don’t mistake me. If you ever pull that shit again, I will personally deliver your candy-coated ass to Agency’s tender clutches.” He paused, and added, “On the other hand... I was down, and you came back for me. So, thank you.”
“Don't give me any credit, Mister Clausen. I did it for the mission. Never drop your guard around me.”
“Oh, cut the shit.” Clausen said, with a heavy sigh. “Always with the ‘I am a monster’ crap! Take a fucking thank you!”
“You do not understand.” Berenson said, “Look at Tiberius. Look at his madness. We are the same stock, raised in the same way, nature and nurture entwined. Do you know the difference between us?” He took a breath. “At the battle of Glavoor, the Faction's last stand, I took a hit from a grenade machine gun. It ripped my chest open, and I was buried under rubble. I survived, barely, left in a coma for months while my body repaired itself. Unable to get free, I went into hibernation for two years, buried in the dust and ruin. They found me during reconstruction, and I spent four more weeks in a hospital as a John Doe, slowly reviving as a 'miracle'. When I broke free, I saw the world had changed, and I went into hiding.
“Tiberius, however, escaped, and seized control of the Faction from the shattered Council, killing and maneuvering his way to the top. He rebuilt it in his image, and launched this shadow war. The extra strain of this, the demands on his mind, accelerated the Titan Five degeneration, and made him what he is.
“The only difference between us, is that I took a lucky shot, and he did not. In another world, he would be here, and I would be there, and you would be placing your trust in just as much of an abomination.”
“I don't believe that.”
“Then you are a fool, Mister Clausen. I am using you as we speak, crafting you into a better weapon to serve my needs.”
“I don't believe-”
“Stop believing, start thinking! I use! I manipulate! It is what I do. I am very good at it. I am doing it right now!” He added, quieter, “I gave you a promise. I am a true bastard, Mister Clausen, but I told you I would not lie to you-”
“You never said you wouldn't lie to yourself.”
Berenson's mouth snapped shut.
Clausen flashed his best grin and nodded, then turned around and walked out the door. Precision guided, indeed.
The Reveal
Your unit is the key. Each and every man and woman holds the linchpin to unraveling Tiberius's plot. Do not take this for any life-affirming, self-esteem boosting drivel, because it is not. It is a response to the nature of his threat: his ploy is information, a time bomb of explosive data that will erupt into revolution.
What we will do is take his bomb, and spread it out, change the paradigm from 'the mob versus the State' into a question of individuals. The Authority believes that information must be controlled, must be locked down, but this crystalline structure will shatter. I ask you simply, which lasts longer, the mountain or the sea? We will strike Tiberius directly, yes, but we will do so while releasing his weapon at our discretion, a controlled burn to prevent the greater fire.
I want each of you to record yourself, tell your life story, as if to your family, to your lover, to yourself. Expose yourself, leave your final wishes, for this will be your epitaph, your will and testament. When we step into the fire, we will link the TACNET system directly into a public broadcast, and the entire world will watch - we will make them watch - as we live and die for them. I want them to know who you are, why you are here. I want them to hope for you, to pray for you, and when you die, I want them to cry tears of regret, not because you died for them, but because they were not great enough to die with you.
We will transform Tiberius's challenge from structures and States into one of personhood, and we will shatter the unthinking mob into billions of actors, and flip them, one by one. We will expose the Authority as flawed, we will unseat the would-be tyrant, and we will turn his oh-so-carefully planned revolution into our reformation. We will do this, not because we have no choice, but because this is our only choice, and in this, we are invincible.
“Look, all of this is well and good, but what you're talking about is compromising the entire system!” Firenze protested. “That thing is built right into the backbone! It can't be done!”
Berenson disagreed. “It can be broken.”
“Sure, sure, with a hundred of the best crackers, hackers, and slicers, all working together for years, maybe!” Firenze allowed. “No system is impenetrable, but NODA... that's about the closest it gets.”
“The entirety of the net is built on NODA, Mister Firenze.” Berenson reminded.
“Pieces and parts! The EBS is directly tied to it! It's gonna have ICE that will knock a man off the net, maybe even right out of his own mind! Listen, I've run with the best of them, chased ghosts, and every time, when it ends in some NODA site? No one who goes in comes out with their mind intact. The old AGI down there is still running, at some basic level, and it's pulling security for the whole damn EBS like an immune system. This is impossible!”
“I thought you and machines had an 'understanding'?”
“Fuck you.” Firenze stated. “And even if I was crazy enough to run that damn network, there's still the matter of all the new top level ICE, adaptive programs, burners, and full time slicers running netsec! No one can break that damn thing.”
“You already did.”
“Bullshit. When?”
“Remember the honey-trap? The one that dragged you into this?” Berenson asked.
Firenze froze, for a brief moment, as he parsed Berenson’s implication. Finally, he sputtered, “No fucking way.”
“The EBS code. I chose it for a reason.”
“You anticipated this? A year ago?” Firenze demanded.
“Two years. And I did not anticipate this outcome, I simply allowed for eventualities. Many people think that I am some sort of chess master, but truthfully, I am more of a juggler. I put so many balls in the air, surely one or two of them will pay out.”
“You're scary, you know that?” Firenze said.
“I have been told.”
Firenze took another sip from his can of cola. The wheels in his head were turning, even before he turned back to his tablet. “Look, even if I could do that again - it almost killed me, you know - even if, it's still impossible.”
“Why?”
“The EBS is based on module security. I would need a Quantum Encryption Key, the physical thing, to access the network. Those can't be duplicated or hacked, they shatter and lockout the whole system. That means physical theft from a Black Site, under Agency lock and key…” Firenze trailed off as Berenson produced a small silver tube with tumblers and an ISA logo. “Is that-”
“A QE Key? Yes.” Berenson handed it over.
“How the flying fu-”
“You honestly do not want to know, Mister Firenze. Simply leave it that I might be a wizard.”
Firenze downed the rest of his soda in one gulp, and hurled the can towards the general direction of the wall. His brain was spinning into overdrive. He could feel it, the giddy little rush he got when a problem started to unfold in front of him, as he started to see the first lever he’d pull. He wasn’t committed. This was stupid. This was probably impossible. But the problem… “Okay, let's assume I can do this. I break open the EBS, we pirate the signal and take over the entire civilized world's communications. Then what? We post up biographies and combat feed?”
“Leave that to me.”
“What, did you kidnap a whole staff of holovid actors to give a reenactment history lesson?”
“No, just a news editor.”
“You're fucking me.”
“I didn't keep her long, just long enough to let her know about our plan to blow up the Airship. Handed her the dossiers
on the unit, let her dismiss it as a crackpot rant, and then let her go. Several months later, it plays out almost exactly as said madman predicted. I think she will be far more willing to listen, this time. Like I said, a few of the long shots always pay off.”
“You are fucking terrifying.” Firenze stated.
“I also had pizza while I was out. It was not as good as I had hoped.”
“Terrifying.”
Berenson grinned, broader than ever.
Extrapolation 1000
“The only remaining question is, 'when do we strike?' The answer to that is simple. We strike when Tiberius makes the first move in his endgame. We must allow him to commit, to place his strongest forces in locations from which he cannot recall them, and only then will we act. Too early, and he will be fortified against us. Too late, and it would not matter. We must strike while we both balance upon the edge of the razor, and hope that we can remain upon that perch for longer than he.
“To do this, we need to reveal his plan. What is his game? What is his gambit? It is not the bomb, we know that now, but it is not merely information, either. He harvested Strand in vast quantities, and he is not one to waste any resource. He will have a purpose, a trick, and a question.
“I believe I have deciphered it. I was blinded by the obvious uses of Strand, of its potential as a bomb or a reactor, and I fell into his deception, right along with the Authority. Did you know that the byproducts of Strand's harvesting can be combined with potent deliriants, to produce hallucination, dissociation, and an immensely positive feelings of 'oneness' with the universe? Did you know that, immediately thereafter, they leave the subject depressed, isolated, and withdrawn, yearning to 'commune' again? Highly addictive, highly potent… and they render the user very open to suggestion during their active window.
“The Authority ran tests on this years ago, first to determine the risk of the harvesting, and then to possibly weaponize the byproducts. The research was canceled, of course, due to ethical concerns, and the fact that the subjects responded to violence with extreme reciprocity, fueled by nightmarish visions and near superhuman endurance, then fell into a bad 'trip' from which most never recovered. The testing was buried along with Durandal.
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