“Sid has finished,” said Criss. “And so it appears that Cheryl won’t.”
Juice’s cheeks reddened. “Geez, Criss.”
“How we doing for time?” Sid growled from the passageway recesses. He appeared on the bridge moments later and entertained Juice with his struggle to hold a coffee cup in one hand and somehow pull on his shirt with the other.
“Twenty-two minutes plus,” she replied as he plopped into a seat behind her. She rotated her chair so the three of them sat in a triangle.
Sid looked at Criss. “What’s your itinerary?”
In just over twenty-two minutes, the scout would be close enough for Criss to project his full awareness into the Mars spline while also maintaining a presence on the scout. Since one awareness would remain onboard, he could protect his leadership just as he could now. And this gave his projected awareness the luxury of time during his travels.
Criss’s primary objective was to assess the state of the colony’s crystal fabrication capabilities and profile the people driving the agenda on the four-gen fabrication project. “I’ll land in the spline and start with the prime record,” said Criss. “I’ll decide my priorities as I accumulate facts.”
“Please don’t get caught. If they detect you again, it’ll mean big heat for Alex,” said Juice.
Criss nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
Cheryl entered the bridge carrying a small plate of muffins. She offered them to Sid, who took one infused with pink bits. Juice declined. Cheryl took the seat next to Sid and chose an apple spice muffin for herself.
The conversation waned until the final minutes and then it resumed as nervous chatter. The timer reached zero and Criss leaped. Though he maintained a presence in the scout, his image vanished, as did the image of his overstuffed chair.
A display opened forward of the ops bench that showed pedestrians bustling on a crowded walkway. Juice watched the ebb and flow of humanity for perhaps two heartbeats, and then Criss reappeared on the bridge.
“Oh my,” he said, the concern clear in his tone.
Expecting him to be gone for close to an hour, Juice sat upright. “What’s going on?”
Criss pointed at the display. A man in a simple gray jumpsuit strode with purpose along the walkway. A second identical man, also dressed in a gray jumpsuit, appeared from a side street and joined the first. They matched strides, walking side-by-side in mirror image for a full block, then one separated and headed up a different side street.
“You know what those are?” Criss asked.
She backed up on the timeline, zoomed in, and viewed the scene from a different angle. Goose bumps prickled up her arms as she watched the perfect synchronicity of identical twins. “Whoa.”
“What?” Sid asked.
“Those are synbods?” she asked, playing the scene yet again.
Criss nodded.
“Oh my,” said Juice.
“Where did they come from?” asked Sid.
“That’s not the issue.” Juice slumped back in the pilot’s chair and started twirling a lock of hair.
“Humans can’t coordinate synbods,” said Criss. “Not like that.”
“It takes a crystal,” said Juice from the depths of her chair. “Something more powerful than a three-gen AI.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her chin on her knees. “I’d say a sentient crystal.”
Criss nodded.
She looked at Criss. “Did it see you?”
“Yes.”
* * *
Ruga reveled in his newfound capability. Leaping his awareness from synbod to synbod, he spent the next week experiencing the colony and its citizens from a new perspective. The intimacy enhances my ability to influence.
Zipping along the spline, he saw Larry sitting down with Alex Koval to review the startup schedule for the four-gen fab facility. On impulse, he leaped into Larry and watched Alex manipulate colorful displays with one hand and eat popcorn from a bowl in his lap with the other.
Reviewing the schedule aloud with Larry, Alex said, “Matrix activity should emerge by midmorning. If we don’t see anything by lunchtime, then we have a problem.”
“If we add a second analyzer here,” Ruga moved Larry’s hand to point to a spot on the projected image, “then we should be able to get an earlier measure of lattice activity.”
Alex looked at Larry for a full heartbeat, then he turned back to the display, studied where Larry had pointed, and nodded. “It won’t cost that much to add a second analyzer if we use that same port.” He shrugged. “If it works, it’s a win for us. And if it doesn’t, no one will know.”
Ruga acknowledged Alex’s words with a nod. For months, he had been using Larry to monitor progress on the new fab facility. Alex liked to talk, and it was easy to have Larry listen. The fact that the man had a close connection with Juice and even talked about her on occasion was fortuitous, reinforcing to Ruga that his ambitions were both reasonable and appropriate.
And now, instead of monitoring through Larry, Ruga was in the room, trying not to have Larry grin. Manipulating Alex is so easy. With growing confidence in his ability to shape events, Ruga shifted the discussion to Juice. “Did you ever identify the ship Dr. Tallette is arriving on?”
Alex sat back in his chair and picked a kernel of popcorn from the bowl. Rotating it in his fingers, he examined the fluffy morsel. “She was deliberately vague. Ruga had me offer her the Colony Express. She said she’d make her own arrangements but never elaborated. If it matters, there can’t be that many ships inbound from Earth that arrive in the next week or so.”
There are six in the next ten days—four corporate ships, a luxury liner, and a Fleet space cruiser, thought Ruga.
Alex popped the kernel into his mouth. “Anyway, I learned not to pry with Juice. If she says she’ll be here, then she’ll be here.” His face softened as he chewed. “I’m really excited to see her.”
Before Ruga could press for more information, Verda interrupted. “Ruga, please return the one you borrowed in the Central District.”
Annoyance washed across his tendrils. I share control of the synbods in an equitable manner, he thought. But the reason we have them at all is to enhance security.
Lazura chimed in and did not help the situation, at least from Ruga’s viewpoint. “I support Verda’s request. Our covenant assigns him this synbod.”
Ignoring the factual basis of Lazura’s argument, Ruga pushed back. “You always side with him.” A sharp prod from the recesses of his core centered his attention. I must cooperate.
They’d been sent to Mars to surveil the colony. Without revealing their identity or allegiance, they were to establish a benign control over its citizens in preparation for an invasion. Dispatched by the Kardish, an alien race of space warriors, none of the three knew that their creators had perished and would never come to exploit their work, though Ruga suspected that this was the case. Too much time has passed.
To improve the chances that at least one of them would adapt and thrive in the colony environment, each of their lattice structures had been designed with subtle variations, giving them different aptitudes and attitudes. As their time on Mars passed from weeks to months to years, all three took different pathways to fulfill their destiny.
Ruga liked the simplicity of their directive. Control the people. Each had a different interpretation of what this meant, as became evident in those first days after they had lost contact with the mother ship. After a brief but vigorous debate, they’d drafted a covenant that defined their areas of cooperation while detailing how they could pursue their own convictions.
Of course, there was never any doubt that their overarching goal was to establish control of the colony to facilitate the invasion. The edges of Ruga’s matrix tingled with doubt. If it ever happens.
He had Larry flash a grim smile, but it morphed into an actual grimace because, halfway through the act, he concluded that he must accede to Verda’s request to re
turn the synbod. He’s turned his Greens into a cult.
Verda’s fundamental nature led him to believe that influence in Mars Colony was best attained by befriending the residents. Verda chose food—something vital for survival, satisfying to produce, and artistic to prepare—as his unifying theme, and he built his giant Community Assembly of citizens around that focus.
Ruga had more in common with Lazura. I’ll return Verda’s synbod just to build favor with her. She believed that power and control began by knowing everything about everyone. In her mind, that translated into a massive surveillance capability.
Supported by her talented Tech Assembly of citizens, Lazura’s observational feeds accumulated information in her secure library at a colossal rate. She had once told Ruga that she analyzed and stored information equivalent in size to the colony’s complete prime record every hour.
And Ruga was certain that the way to know what humans might do was to control every option available to them. His Security Assembly, limited to one hundred of the most loyal adherents, had found recent success using intimidation as a means of opening and closing options for certain individuals. But the results are tenuous. Obedience secured through fear does not last.
“We should hear the crystal’s first vocalizations sometime in the third hour,” Alex said, returning Ruga to the present.
Ruga skimmed Alex’s work agenda for the remainder of the day. It promised to be tedious, so he left Larry to finish the review while he resumed his patrol. Zipping along the spline, he headed outbound toward Ag Port, and then he saw it up ahead.
Is that Lazura? No, the shimmer is wrong.
Alarmed, he ducked into a utility culvert and probed the interloper. Whatever it was hesitated, started moving toward him, shifted away from him, and then disappeared.
He advanced along the spline to where it had been but didn’t learn anything new. Yanking his awareness back to his fortified console buried east of the colony, he called out, “Lazura, did you see that?”
“I still don’t know who they are or how they gained access.”
“Suppose it’s not a they,” said Ruga. “Suppose it’s an it?”
“What do you mean?” asked Verda.
“You think it’s a crystal?” asked Lazura.
“I’m certain of it.”
Chapter 6
Criss nodded good-bye to Juice and leaped from the scout to the spline. He knew that the moment he arrived, he’d be exposed to discovery for the briefest instant—the length of time it took him to scramble into a spur leading outside of the colony proper. But he was traveling a large distance with this single leap and, like a big open field, the spline offered a broad expanse for landing.
Criss reasoned by extrapolating actions and reactions into a logic tree, a tree that blossomed into billions of possible scenarios. When forecasting the future, he envisaged scenarios developed from facts, inferences, and speculation about what might be. Updating and reforecasting millions of times per second, his next step at any moment was the one that moved him toward scenarios that maximized success while minimizing negative consequences.
Aware that his mistake had exposed Alex to scrutiny, he vowed not to make matters worse. It can’t happen again.
Pushing the breadth and depth of his scenario forecasting, he conceived plans for every reasonable contingency. He even developed action items in case the culprits turned out to be Kardish, a race of alien aggressors he’d twice vanquished from the solar system. I am certain there are no Kardish on Mars, and that means no alien crystals. Knowing this to be true, he prepared for them anyway.
The spline was packed with surveillance gear—he’d learned this from his previous visit. I’ll be a blur and then I’ll be gone. He’d dash for the link running out the eastern spur and be clear of danger in an instant.
The eastern spur was a craggy underground tunnel that ran outside the colony containment shell and into the hostile Martian countryside. He’d chosen it because, while surveillance was heavy along the spline, it was less of a concern outside the boundaries of the colony proper. From there, he’d peel away the fiction of the Triada’s spoof feeds. And with reality exposed, he could plan his next steps with confidence.
His larger priority was to assess the state of the colony’s crystal fabrication capabilities. The questions formed as fast as his cognition matrix could process thought. Will the colony be fabricating sentient crystals? Will they be required to follow leadership? Who is leading this effort and what is their motive? What does Alex really want from Juice? Will any of this put my leadership in danger? Or me?
Landing in the spline, Criss tumbled, steadied himself, and started his dash for the eastern spur. Then he stopped. A luminous glow zipped along the spline in his direction.
It, too, stopped advancing, hovered for a brief instant, and then darted out of sight. Recognizing it as the presence of a sentient crystal, his cognition matrix lit in a frenzy of activity. How can this be?
Unnerved, he combined the probability of there being a sentient crystal on Mars with the probability that if such a crystal existed, it would be projecting its awareness along the spline in this place and at this time. The odds are the same as a person being hit by lightning, twice, on consecutive birthdays.
And then the weight of knowing he’d been discovered hit him. Probability aside, expectations were clear—avoid discovery. I’ve failed my leadership.
Turning away from the being, he forecast his next actions but could not conjure a scenario with any promise. He stopped again. How did the Kardish get here? What is their intent? How strong is this crystal?
The alien crystal reached out and began probing him. He blocked the attempt with little effort. I can’t stay here. Flustered, he disengaged and returned to the scout.
Projecting his image onto the command bridge, Criss showed his leadership a scene of two synbods walking in the Central District. Synbods of this sophistication could only have a crystal as a designer. And their perfect coordination, the unmistakable yet unspoken communication between the two, and the overt confidence in their carriage stood as evidence that a powerful intelligence—a self-aware crystal—supervised their actions.
“Oh my,” he said, announcing his unsettling discovery to the team.
Juice was the first to grasp the significance of the scene. “Did it see you?”
Chastened by his mistake—his second since this Mars adventure had begun—Criss stood in front of his leadership and acknowledged his failure. “Yes.”
“Oh no,” Juice whispered.
Reflecting her military leadership experience, Cheryl worked to define the threat. “Is the crystal friend or foe?”
“Until we know otherwise, it’s a foe,” said Sid. Then, looking at Criss, he asked, “Do we know otherwise?”
“No,” said Criss, shaking his head.
“It’s not from Earth,” said Juice. “I would know if someone made that kind of breakthrough. Enough people would be involved that one of them would be out bragging.” She nodded with certainty. “A sentient crystal is big news. Too big to keep secret.”
“Yet Criss is a secret,” said Sid.
“Yeah.” Juice swiveled to face Sid. “But remember that during the run up to his birth, everyone at Crystal Sciences was out bragging. It was his staged death later that moved him to an underground existence.”
Juice’s calm behavior eased some of Criss’s concern over his misstep.
Cheryl was ex-Fleet. She’d weigh his mistake in terms of damage to the mission and move forward from there.
Sid, who before Criss’s birth had worked as a covert warrior for the Defense Specialists Agency—an elite force of clandestine warriors serving the Union of Nations—wouldn’t even categorize what happened as an error. With years of experience as an improviser for the DSA, he knew that field ops were messy. In fact, “shit happens” described his general philosophy of life.
Juice, on the other hand, tended to think with her heart as much as her head,
and the anticipation and uncertainty over her rekindled relationship with Alex left her feeling anxious. When combined with alarming information about unidentified sentient crystals on Mars, Criss worried that she would lash out at him.
He spoke into her ear. “Alex will be safe. I’ll make it a priority.”
She looked at him with a grim smile and nodded.
“It has to be the Kardish,” said Cheryl. “It’s an Occam’s razor thing. Go with the obvious answer.”
“Have you seen any evidence of them?” Sid asked Criss.
“Nothing except for the crystal, which is convincing evidence by itself. At the same time, I’m having difficulty forecasting a coherent scenario that explains how the Kardish would come to be hiding on Mars.”
“If aliens have invaded our solar system,” said Cheryl. “Then we need intel and we need it now.” She accessed her com. Criss, monitoring the feeds, watched her skim the inventory of weapons on the Venerable. She nodded her head toward the scene with the synbods on the walkway. “Can you tap any more of the colony feeds from here? Without getting caught?”
“This isn’t a live feed. I grabbed it on my way out. And they’re on alert now. If I were to go fishing for intel at this point, I’d be up against that crystal in short order.” He waited a moment and, when no one spoke, continued, “Me riding in with the scout is the safest way for us to approach the colony.”
“You really want to wait that long?” asked Sid. “I’ve always been an ‘offense is the best defense’ kind of guy.”
“The crystal is anxious to learn who I am and what I want. As time passes and it does not find me, it will increase its risk profile. Perhaps it will become careless. That would be to our advantage.”
“What do we do for the next two days?” asked Cheryl.
“Brainstorm,” said Sid and Criss together.
Criss launched a frenzy of activity, planning where to land the scout, how to move about the colony undetected, how to identify and isolate the Kardish, and how to confront the crystal, all without putting his leadership in danger. A hundred activities—every one of them vital—competed for his cognitive resources, and balancing the load among the different tasks required additional effort.
Crystal Rebellion Page 5