by Brian Trent
For starters, he wasn’t charred to a molten crisp. Gethin and Jack arrived at the recovery chamber in time to see Cavor freshly remade, wearing the black robe and slippers of the clinic. He was bald, stocky and muscular, sporting the kind of physical framework usually associated with early hominids. Thick neck, long arms, compact body. Cavor sat on the edge of his recovery bed, watching the sensor screen run their diagnostics.
The interview lasted forty-nine minutes. Gethin began it friendly enough, shaking the man’s hand and inquiring about his health, sharing anecdotal episodes of his own experience with regeneration. They laughed together, and Jack simply looked on, bewildered by this chummy camaraderie.
“Mind if I ask you some questions, Mr. Cavor?” Gethin said at last.
Cavor shook his head. “Please.”
Then everything changed. Gethin fired salvoes about the nature of the cathode rail work, the TNO Project, what Cavor did in his spare time, why he had been in the bathroom at the time of the explosion. Gethin never got outwardly angry, though he remained in iron control over the interview. It was not even the same style he had used with the Merrils. Jack sat back and watched him eviscerate Cavor until the man was red-faced, sweating, his heart beating wildly, and the sensor screen warning against this level of anxiety.
“How would you explain that energy wave?”
Cavor looked desperately to Jack, found no help there, and faced Gethin. “I didn’t even see this energy wave you’re talking about, Mr. Bryce.”
Gethin nodded for Jack to display the holocube’s contents on the wall.
“This mysterious energy blows up your lab. Destroys the shuttle. Then you get incinerated hours later.”
Cavor sighed.
Gethin cracked his knuckles. “Hey, Saylor? Do you have any chocolate? No? I was having the oddest craving for mushrooms earlier, but now it’s Mexican spiced chocolate I want.” He shook his head, looked at Cavor. “Happens when they regenerate you. You start craving all kinds of things while your body’s chemistry balances. Give it a few hours and you’ll be salivating for celery sticks crammed full of blue cheese or something.”
Cavor managed a weak smile.
“But back to my questioning, what do you think this energy was? Use your imagination, ’cuz I’m fresh out of theories.”
Cavor glistened in perspiration like a freshly caught fish. “Well…I’ve never seen anything like it. The way it twisted sharply towards Earth…”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know what to say about that.”
“What do you think of the tendrils hanging around it like that? And the texture of its luminous body?”
Cavor held out his hands helplessly. “Mr. Bryce, I have no idea what to say. I’m just seeing this now.”
“I was thinking it looked alive. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s talk about things you do know. You were stationed on Luna for two years and never had any visitors other than your fellow employees. Not even a trip to New Shinjuku or Lilith’s. You spend almost no time in social Caves. That’s a little odd, don’t you think? Are you naturally that much of a loner?”
The questions persisted a few more minutes. Then Gethin startled everyone by standing and blotting his hands on his pants. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Cavor. I hope you’ll forgive my style, but my responsibilities outweigh your comfort level. You understand.”
Cavor exhaled in undisguised relief. “Of course. I’d probably do the same in—”
“Who’s Apophis?”
There!
Gethin’s sniffer programs were on high alert, and Cavor’s reaction on hearing the name was a sharp, sudden shock. Through the interview he had been prodding the man’s reactions to certain sounds and phrases, narrowing down a finite list of generic stimuli to several possible outcomes. His sniffers sifted data derived from Cavor’s posture, body temp, eye dilation, breathing patterns, mouth movements, skin flushes.
Now fear crackled through the man like ocean surf. Body temperature flared, sweat output increased.
“Apophis?” Cavor frowned. “I don’t know. Who is it?”
Gethin turned to Jack, nodded, and walked out of the room.
* * *
In the corridor, Jack felt grudging respect for the thoroughness of the interview.
“What happens now?” Gethin asked. “Does Cavor go back to work?”
“Not for several days at least. We have our own interrogation to conduct. But I’ve got a question: who is Apophis?”
Gethin sighed, his lungs burning. “You noticed how he reacted too, eh?”
“I did,” Jack admitted, aware of a flurry of electrical activity in his security online receptor. The higher-ups were running cross-references on Cavor’s background in relation to Gethin’s spatter of inquiries. The word ‘Apophis’ was being researched and crosschecked, databases linking up to facilitate the search.
“I played a hunch,” the investigator said. “Early in the interview I determined that Cavor knew more than he was letting on.”
Jack protested, “He didn’t trigger any patmatch for deception. We had him pegged as an innocent victim.”
“He’s not. There are ways to defeat sniffers. He’s a loner type, sure, but there was something else going on. When did you hire Cavor?”
“He was born a Promethean. Grew up in the company.”
“But his loyalties lie elsewhere. Oh, he’s a true believer all right, but not necessarily for the ‘up to the stars’ stuff the rest of you are so fond of.”
“I don’t understand. What does this have to do with this Apophis?”
“Aren’t your people researching it right now?”
Jack shrugged. “Of course. But in the spirit of cooperation, I thought you could save us the trouble.”
Gethin leaned against the wall. “Tell your comrades to look up two episodes of history. The final collapse of the United States, shortly after the Broken Spear incident, is the first.”
Instantly a renewed storm of signals pinged in Jack’s head.
“And the second?”
“A little incident during the march of Enyalios against the Texan militia.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“Do your own homework,” Gethin said. “Before your enemies do.”
“We do have lots.”
“Well, you earn them.”
Jack scowled. “How’s that?”
“Everyone knows that it’s the Promethean dream to reach the stars. Make humanity a truly galactic species. But your company also has a way of reminding people of the old plutocracies…interested in the stars for profit, rather than the survival and betterment of the human race.”
“Even if that’s true, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Know why the old world fell?”
“No one knows why it fell.”
“They don’t know the actual cause of the deathblow, sure. But surviving records point to a parasitic system. One class of people – government and plutocracy united in a patrician class of their own special rules and special rights, over everyone else. Sound familiar?”
“And the IPC is somehow better?”
Gethin grinned cruelly. “Know what I see when I look at Prometheus? A cult whose minions voluntarily submerge their own wills and dreams and freethinking capacity into one gigantic corporate maw. Religion in an age without religion. The TNO is just the latest proof. Fiat lux.”
“Who better to do it?” Jack snapped, astonished at this adversarial outsider. “Vector Nanonics has been under investigation for ethics violations. AztecSky is under-funded for this kind of thing. The Hanmura family tried to buy the contract, but just because they’re good shipbuilders doesn’t mean they have the tech know-how to construct history’s first example of true stellar engineering.” He s
uddenly wanted Keiko by his side. She’d rip this guy’s tongue out!
And just like that, as if conjured, a message from Keiko splashed onto his optics.
“I’ll wait,” Gethin said knowingly.
Etiquette was to step back, read your message in private, and only then return to your previous engagement. Jack Saylor remained in place, towering over Gethin, and read the message with eyes open.
“That was my partner,” he said at last. “There’s been a report of a Stillness attack on a Hudson trading post in the Wastes. Numerous casualties. One witness brought in for questioning. Apparently, the terrorists acquired two antimatter missiles.”
“Probably unrelated,” Gethin said, but then a thought occurred to him. He touched the nearest wetport.
“Add parameter,” he instructed his hydra. “Hudson. Wastes.” He looked at his escort. “Where is the witness now?”
“At our medcenter on Level 15, with my partner.”
“Who is your partner?”
“Internal Affairs Officer Yamanaka.”
Gethin raised an eyebrow. “Keiko Yamanaka?”
“Nice guess.”
The strangest look came over Gethin’s face. Pried apart, it might have contained sorrow, joy, irony, fear, and astonishment, each emotion pinned like butterflies onto a corkboard. It was the first uncontrived look Jack had seen on this guy’s face since meeting him.
“I’ll see you on Level 15,” Gethin said, and then he left.
Chapter Fourteen
Hanmura3 Sinks an Offshore Rig
Sakyo Hanmura3 sat at the airship window, absently fingering the sill, overlooking one of Switzerland’s breathtaking mountains. He watched skiers crawling over the white slopes and thought back to Olympus Mons, where he would often hike or ski for days…pushing himself to discover his limits. These Swiss ranges were like foothills by comparison, yet the challenge might be comparable given Earth’s gravity. Even now, local gravity squeezed his lungs and tugged every muscle. How did people live on Earth? It was like being at the bottom of the sea.
He wondered what his other selves were up to; the original on Mars, and Hanmura2 on Luna. Direct communication would tip the IPC, so a few associates, servants, and go-betweens conveyed coded communications. Orders to attack the Promethean offshore rig were the last he had heard from himself.
Hanmura3 turned from the window and went to his office desk. It was handsome oak on a blue carpet. He poured himself some water and settled into his wetware chair. He plugged into an Arcadian shell account.
Games are business are war, he thought fondly.
To many APAC traditionalists, Arcadia was the most striking example of materialistic illusion, equivalent to attaching your optic nerves to VR goggles and walking around, digitally blindfolded, forever. It was Plato’s Cave taken to the extreme. A few outspoken philosophers decried it as the first step of a Faustian conspiracy, whose purpose would be to wean people off reality. Some said that since everything in Arcadia was pure illusion, then satori – that flash of enlightenment sought by Zen masters – would be impossible to achieve.
Absolutely absurd, Hanmura thought.
The physical universe was illusion through and through, and it didn’t matter if the illusion was in digital pixels or the atoms of a rice-wine flask. True enlightenment came from within. Immortality hadn’t destroyed karma; it merely forced one individual to experience its consequences in a single lifetime. The same was true of enlightenment. Digital illusion was merely another path to meditation.
Or to war.
In his airship cabin, Hanmura3 linked to the Arcadian gameweb and logged into a game called Tengu Castle.
Instantly, a new environment spiked into his senses. A drafty stone chamber with a fireplace. Vermillion curtains dressing tall, stained-glass windows. Two timberwolves gnawing on bones on the woven carpet.
Hanmura3’s entry point was at the head of a heavy oak table. Sixteen people were already there, clearly awaiting his arrival. Men and women dressed in the upscale livery of medieval European nobles. To each other, their faces were modeled on the actual person wearing them; if an outsider were to glimpse the gathering, they would see only generic visages. Only one of the high-level operatives had not been seated; the fellow was impatiently standing by an open window, gazing out on the chilly hinterlands and black forests that covered much of Tengu Castle’s gameworld. Hearing the sudden hush in the room, he turned, saw that their CEO had joined them, and went to his seat.
Hanmura3 scowled at him. He was tempted to dismiss him right then; his lips parted, the urge burned in his throat.
“We have a target of opportunity,” he said after an unsettling silence. “Time frame is twenty-four hours. What’s the status of this grid?”
The operatives provided him the latest field intel from the real world. Tengu Castle’s gameworld was studded with forests, caves, open grasslands and a wildly creative variety of castles. Hanmura operatives had taken control of one corner of the gameworld. Having driven out every other player, they now used the region as a virtual testing ground. They built eight castles to represent real-world targets.
“Inform the garrisons their castles will be besieged today,” Hanmura3 said.
The operative who had been standing at the window – his name was Taku from the Singapore office – frowned. “Who are we attacking in the real world? Hanmura-sama, our Pacific routes have benefited from stable relations. Is this just a test? Because I would strongly discourage any—”
Hanmura3 couldn’t believe this public insubordination. This is what happens when I’m away from Earth too long, he thought.
“Sit over by the wolves! You are no longer permitted at this table! Go!”
Taku paled, stunned by this vehemence. He stood and complied, squatting in seiza posture between the two wolves near the fireplace. They continued gnawing their bones, barely paying him any mind. Limited AI. They recognized everyone in this castle as a friend.
The other operatives were already relaying Hanmura3’s orders. They spoke into iron wristguards, alerting the holding forces of each nearby castle to an imminent attack.
When they were done, Hanmura3 continued. “Explain the defensive capabilities of Crystal Citadel.”
A senior official in the group volunteered the data. Crystal Citadel was a stand-in model for a real-world Promethean offshore rig. It had been modeled carefully to mimic that installation’s fundamentals: an octagonal main body supported by four sturdy concrete legs. It was defended by archers, pikemen, and wizards…to represent the real-world defenses of turrets, spiderbots, and submersibles.
In the real world, Prometheus Industries operated several deep-sea laboratories and research rigs. Some of the most sensitive research occurred in these remote fortresses, where Republic law couldn’t be enforced as readily as in the world’s enclaves and arcologies. Security protocols included an array of maritime defenses. Staff was effectively sealed away for years at a time; research terminals were kept strictly off the web grid. Progress reports were dispatched the old-fashioned way: by physical transport under elite guard.
The practical consequence was that marine labs were nearly impossible to penetrate. They remained special battlefield prizes. Espionage tactics historically failed against them, and failed big.
While in his early thirties, Sakyo Hanmura thought it worthwhile to focus his budding career on this corporate war challenge.
The basic problem – successful insertion, theft, and escape – was reduced if the objective was straightforward sabotage. Hanmura had proceeded to amass a list of marine targets chosen because of their remote locations and insulating, undersea topography. He had designed a formidable demolition team. After seventy years of subcontracting through the rogue South American state Xibalba, he succeeded in his aim. Xibalban scientists created for him the Sea Dragon operatives.
The Sea D
ragons were grown from human genomes, but designed for aquatic environments. Engineered with gills and a cartilaginous skeleton capable of withstanding staggering pressures. Skin woven with polyanilene rotors and keratin mesh and chromatophores, gifting the Dragons with the ability to achieve what CAMO suits could: true invisibility at a whim, without electronics that could trigger a rig’s sensors.
“Everyone in this room – other than Taku – will participate in the assault on Crystal Citadel,” Hanmura3 explained. “You will represent a marine assault team. You will approach the citadel unseen. You will set explosive charges at key points on the installation’s pylons.”
One of the women nodded agreeably. “Yes, Hanmura-sama.”
“Your goal is destruction of the target at all costs. Understand that once you make physical contact with the installation, the garrison within will be alerted to your presence. They will do everything in their power to stop you.”
The same was true for the real world. In a few hours, the Sea Dragon team would be released via submersible several miles from the target rig. They would swim across the muddy Pacific bottom, keeping low, unseen, exuding neither body heat nor electrical impulses. Once at the installation’s pylons, they would arrange into position and set drillbots and explosive charges to the reinforced concrete. At this point the rig’s sensors would realize its supports were under attack. Promethean defenses would emerge. It would then be a contest of speed. Defenders versus attackers.
“You will remain with the charges. You will be there when they go off.”
Again, the woman nodded. “I understand.”
“I want to be certain that there is nothing left of the assault to be recovered. Each of your avatars must be completely destroyed.”
“Yes, Hanmura-sama.”
The same would be true of the real-world Sea Dragons. Hanmura Enterprises dared not risk their prized transgenic demolition team being captured and dissected by Promethean technicians.
“Make your preparations at once, and execute,” Hanmura3 told the gathering.
They filed out of the chamber. Hanmura3 turned his cold stare onto Taku, whose head was bowed in shame.