Synchronicity Trilogy Omnibus

by Michael McCloskey

  Xinmei wondered if humans would ever give up their bodies entirely. It didn’t seem likely any time soon, since the government limited VR time severely. Many workers didn’t get more than a couple hours a week. Students got more as long as their studies remained excellent.

  No matter how wonderful virtual reality was, and how strongly it beckoned, the Chinese still remained chained to their real bodies. The robots couldn’t run the world by themselves just yet, though many visionaries declared it was simply a matter of time.

  Might as well enjoy it as much as I can, Xinmei thought, feeling the cool air of the dance hall on her legs. She walked around the main platform, which dominated the center of the building. Balconies ringed the area above for the next three stories, allowing a large number of incarnate observers to attend. It made the event more fun to watch as a virtual observer when people attended incarnate, but of course if everyone showed up xian shen, “in the flesh”, there wouldn’t be enough room.

  She saw him. Feng was dressed in his uniform, knowing that this outfit helped their chances in its own way as much as her own dress. She admired him in the seconds before he spotted her. Such a tall, strong man! He had jet black hair and eyes that were piercing when he wanted, but just as easily became friendly if his mood suited it.

  Perfect for an officer, she thought. And smart. He’ll go far.

  Feng spotted her and smiled. He took her hand and looked her outfit over approvingly. Then his face became serious and he drew her over to a corner of the hall.

  “I’ll be leaving at the end of the semester,” he said.

  Xinmei prepared herself for another session of serious talk.

  “I know,” she said. Her own words sounded lame.

  “Will you accept me as your future husband then? I can’t wait for your response any longer. Will we find a life together?”

  Adding the first ten thousand jobs, announced a message from her little project now running in the Golden Lamb.

  “Perhaps we will,” Xinmei said.

  “Why can’t you ever stand before a charge? Always sidestepping everything,” Feng complained.

  “Life is more complicated than a straight line,” she replied. “I can’t say yes or no to you because we both must launch our careers. After that, we can try to arrange to serve together. I can’t give you the firm answer you demand because I can’t control where we end up.”

  “We will. If we both try we will succeed. I need to know before I leave if you’ll try.”

  One hundred authorization failures.

  She met Feng’s demanding gaze.

  “Yes, I will try.”

  “If you know of another more qualified candidate...”

  “No Feng. You are the most qualified.”

  Two hundred authorization failures.

  Feng kept staring at her. At last his face relaxed. “I take you at your word, then.”

  In his mind they were now a committed couple.

  Xinmei didn’t have any plans to betray his trust. But her focus was solely on her work. The idea of setting it aside to have a family was a distant and vague plan.

  Authorization obtained. Copying archives. Cleaning up.

  Xinmei felt a rush of accomplishment. She had control of her life on all its many levels. She felt invincible.

  “Now, shall we win this contest?” she asked.

  ***

  Saturday morning Xinmei went for an early game of ping pong before beginning her work. It was really an excuse to avoid her analysis of the economics archive she had stolen the night before. Now the exciting part of the task was over, and she was left with the dull work of selecting a good topic and creating a paper that titillated Hu’s own interests in the area.

  It’ll be a little fun making sure that it’s not obvious that I took the topic and some of the information straight from him, she thought, trying to warm herself up to the task.

  She was walking across the campus when some unusual activity down the street caught her eye. A couple of sleek black state cars with red Chinese flags emblazoned on the doors had pulled up to the building across the street.

  Dr. Hu’s building, Xinmei realized. Suddenly she was walking towards the cars, watching carefully. Nothing else was happening outside the building, so she walked inside.

  A few students milled about in the building even at this hour on Saturday. She wandered through them, looking for men and women from the government cars.

  Xinmei spotted a man in a black mix between a uniform and a suit, talking with some security guards. They stood outside Professor Hu’s office. More men were carrying archaic computing devices out of the room. They were also taking the piles of old papers the professor had refused to digitize.

  Oh no.

  She got a good look at him but continued to walk by as if uninterested in the activity. The man was shorter than Feng of course, only about 180 centimeters tall. A bit of gray was visible in his short hair. He had a harsh, squashed nose and the eyes of a man with power. Or was it simply her imagination that gave him that look which reminded her of party leaders, corporate bosses and officers in the military services?

  The man was not in the university directory. Xinmei checked with her underground resources. The computer networks crisscrossing the globe were too dense, too complicated for the government to keep all the information out.

  She got a hit. The face came up in a dossier in her mind.

  His name was Kuo Chien. He worked for the Ministry of State Security.

  Xinmei felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She rushed back to her dorm room. She could access her archives from anywhere via her link, but somehow she felt an instinctual comfort in retreating back to her place of sleep to conduct a surreptitious examination.

  She couldn’t believe her terrible luck. She felt afraid.

  So what exactly was Dr. Hu up to that got him raided by the Ministry of State Security?

  The answer could be in the archive. It still sat on her storage devices, ready for her analysis. She’d had the foresight to at least change its digital profile, breaking it into pieces, artificially altering its hashes and metadata so that anyone looking for copies of the archive would never detect it short of an exhaustive search of all the data in the whole university, which would include having to decrypt her personal safeguards.

  Xinmei closed her eyes and dove into her personal view. She started to take a serious look at what she’d found. The archive had been organized into personal and professional modules, with subjects varying from research topics to the man’s hobbies to his own personal correspondences. Xinmei went directly into the man’s personal data areas, allowing her natural curiosity to lead her.

  One of the directories caught her attention. It was labeled as a family mail repository but Xinmei could see that it had a signature more consistent with an active body of work rather than an archive of accumulating family emails. Sure enough, she found a hidden directory inside with information that wasn’t typical of family correspondence.

  It was a financial analysis. A large number of computers had analyzed the movements of bodies of money around the globe. The information included banks within the PRC as well as those outside China, all the way into neutral territories, and in some cases beyond.

  Professor Hu had traced the money through account after account in the records. In each case the money was sourced from the PRC. The number of companies in the traced routes was large, perhaps a dozen per stream, but the destination was the same each time: The coffers of the world government.

  The world government was less global than its name implied. Set up by the powers of the West– the United States, Brazil, and the EU– it served as a projection of power for the united interests of the Western world.

  China and its Asian allies stood strong against this imposition of power. They refused to allow the UN to interfere within their ever-growing sphere of influence. Although no nation on Earth was actively engaged in open warfare, this standoff had evolved into anot
her cold war.

  The most notable neutral in the global community was India. The neutrals had included Japan, until its forced absorption into the Chinese bloc over ten years ago.

  So the idea that the PRC was sending funds to support the UN was completely laughable. It would be like a movie star funding an investigative magazine trying to uncover scandals that could ruin his or her career. Xinmei frowned. Perhaps Professor Hu had simply gone insane. That could justify a visit from the MSS. They may have shown up to take him away in a straightjacket.

  Xinmei tried to convince herself the conclusion was flawed. But the more she looked at the data the more she realized that the reason the MSS had come to get Hu must be that he had uncovered an awful truth.

  What possible motive does China have for supporting the world government that so harshly opposes it?

  Xinmei broke out of her trance and realized she was ravenous. She hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday, before the dance contest. It was hardly a surprise that her body faced a calorie deficit. No doubt her active mind had taken its toll on her energy reserves, as well.

  She walked to the central kitchen of the dormitory and grabbed a cold bowl of rice and fish. She made it just early enough to grab the last bottle of fruit juice— a real prize for her sugar-hungry brain.

  When she came back to her room, she found Kuo Chien waiting for her. She stared at him, shocked. Chien pointed to her chair. She sat.

  “Our investigation has revealed that you recently copied Professor Hu’s archive over onto storage reserved for your astronautics project,” Chien stated casually.

  An unauthorized transfer.

  “I’m investigating vulnerabilities in our security system. I needed a harmless enough example to prove the concept,” she said quietly.

  “You appear to have succeeded in proving your methods,” Chien said dryly. “I’ll be watching your papers in the future with interest.”

  Xinmei said nothing.

  “As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Professor Hu has been detained by state security. He was involved in some illegal activities. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to verify what you know on the matter.”

  Xinmei felt her heartbeat speed up. She hardly had time to absorb his words when her link announced a truth verification connection. The device in her skull was equipped with enough interfaces into her brain to allow it to be used as an accurate lie detection device. She swallowed even though her mouth felt dry.

  What will happen if I refuse? Dismissal from the university, at best.

  She ordered her link to comply with the request.

  Chien continued his questioning. Xinmei knew it was now an official interrogation.

  “You copied an archive that belongs to Professor Hu into storage allocated for your astronautics project,” Chien said.

  “Yes,” Xinmei said, thinking furiously. What should her strategy be?

  “That transfer provided an authorization code that you did not obtain legitimately.”

  “Yes,” Xinmei said. She suppressed the urge to blurt out, “I was going to report him.” Of course she had no idea if she would have reported him or not, so if she said that, it might show up as a deception.

  “Did you work with others to obtain this archive?”

  “No.”

  “Do others know of your possession of this archive?”

  “No.”

  “And what have you learned of the contents?”

  Xinmei didn’t answer.

  What can I get away with? Can I worm my way out of anything? Or is it too late anyway, since I’ve already admitted to breaking security to get the archive?

  “What have you learned of the contents?” Chien asked again.

  “Dr. Hu kept information on his research there,” Xinmei said.

  “What else was there?”

  “Personal correspondence.”

  “Yes. That is all true. What was Dr. Hu hiding in the archive?” Chien asked without missing a beat. Xinmei sensed the man had an expertise at finding secrets.

  “Dr. Hu was investigating the transfer of funds from the PRC into the Western world government,” Xinmei said quietly.

  Chien sat up. He looked directly at Xinmei.

  Is he surprised to hear about the money, or is he surprised that I know about it?

  “What is the purpose of this transfer of money?” Chien asked.

  “I don’t know,” Xinmei said truthfully. It makes little sense.

  Chien nodded. “Your violations of the rules are very serious, Sun Xinmei,” he said. “Have you considered the consequences of your actions? Did you take this risk, fully weighing the benefits against the dangers?”

  Xinmei’s face felt hot.

  “I... acted with overconfidence,” Xinmei said.

  “And now you must learn your lesson,” Chien said.

  What did Chien want? Would he arrest her? Would he... demand something?

  What will I do if he asks for something inappropriate in exchange for his silence? I cannot betray Feng. If only he were here to protect me.

  She hated her own reaction as soon as she’d thought it. She wasn’t some silly schoolgirl who needed the protection of a man. Even a strong, handsome man like Feng.

  Chien’s gaze held no emotion. His link disconnected from hers, ending the truth check.

  Here it comes.

  “When you graduate, you will come and work for me at the Ministry of State Security.” His tone held no room for negotiation.

  She nodded numbly.

  Chien stood up and straightened his uniform.

  “I will see to it that the necessary arrangements are made. See to your studies with the highest priority. Say nothing of any of this to anyone, or else the consequences will be very dire.”

  He let himself out of the room without elaboration.

  Xinmei collapsed back onto her bed and willed her heart to rest.

  One

  “Ni zai na’er zuo shenme, kong jun shao wei?”

  Feng stopped fiddling with his light vacuum suit and processed the words of his superior officer: What are you doing there, Junior Lieutenant?

  “Going through the transport module boarding checklist, sir!” Feng replied smartly in Beijing Mandarin.

  “And what part of the checklist are you at now?”

  “I just verified the integrity of my vac suit,” Feng replied.

  The light vac suit was standard issue for Chinese soldiers engaging in space warfare. It wasn’t a full duty suit capable of lasting the ravages of space for an extended period of time, but it would most likely save his life if a section became depressurized by an explosion or an armor-piercing projectile.

  “Then I suggest you seal your rib vents,” said the officer in a scalding tone. “I believe that will considerably improve the protection afforded by your suit.”

  “Aye, sir,” Feng said, feeling his face turn red.

  His training unit, composed of junior officers such as himself, had boarded a transport module of their capital ship, Ascending Dragon. The battleship fielded two such modules, which detached from the main vessel to move robots and soldiers onto other ships and stations in nearby space.

  Feng floated slightly as he finished the checklist. The Ascending Dragon only simulated gravity while en route, and otherwise was not capable of providing acceleration for the comfort of its crew. Fortunately for Feng’s health and the wellbeing of his fellow soldiers, the vastness of space required they spend a great deal of time moving from place to place, so they were able to enjoy the illusion of gravity for the majority of their lives in the space service.

  Once Feng’s suit was ready, he hefted the weapon he’d been given for the training exercise. He accessed the short rifle through his cranial link, reviewing its capabilities. He could select between a non-lethal crowd-suppression slug or a small gas grenade for its next launch. He left it on its current setting for the rubber bullet. The rifle interface in his PV showed that it carried fifty of the soft b
ullets and ten of the gas rounds. The target profile was for a human in civilian clothing. He could fire at anyone or anything with a special override, but the interface indicated he didn’t have authorization for the override today.

  Feng suppressed his annoyance at the lack of a real weapon. If he played their games long enough, he’d have true military issue someday.

  Acceleration warning, his link told him. Feng grabbed onto a stabilizing handle with one hand and pulled his rifle close with the other.

  The soldiers had several channels of communication open in their links, a hierarchical set of streams for a man’s squad, his group, company, and battalion. Other channels linked the men to various logistics and support units on board the Ascending Dragon. Feng felt very much a part of the large team, and hoped he’d never get cut off from that support in a real battle. They’d had to train without it from time to time, to simulate the worst case scenarios, such as operating under heavy jamming, being struck by a link-debilitating weapon, or simply being the last man alive.

  The soldiers swayed under acceleration. Feng’s link showed him that the transport module had detached and was underway to their new training ground on Heavenly Fortress. The Chinese space station was exclusively a military base in near-Earth space.

  Feng waited patiently as the module made its way toward the station. Somewhere in the channel he heard a man breathing. He held his breath to make sure the sound wasn’t his own. The sound continued. Someone’s channel was misconfigured. He ignored it.

  More acceleration. This time it continued steadily along one axis, bringing his weight first to his left and downwards, then moving forward and upward. The visualization showed the module matching the movement of the target station. Feng didn’t want to think about what might happen if they crashed into the station too hard. He just waited and tried to calm his mind even as his body reacted, speeding up his breathing and his heart rate.