Rhapsody For The Tempest (The Braintrust Book 3)

by Marc Stiegler

  Ping was watching the Zodiac with a spotter scope. “Occupational hazard,” she offered philosophically. She did not specify whether it was a hazard of being a BrainTrust sniper that you might accidentally kill a pirate or a hazard as a pirate that a BrainTrust sniper might kill you. Both, of course, were true.

  The pirates pulled their comrade out of the water, looked at his missing chest, and dropped him back in the ocean. With a shake of their fists, they fired an RPG grenade at them that fell far, far short.

  Soup grumbled, “I told you they were bouncing all over the place.”

  Ping agreed cheerfully. “Quite true, Soup. Marcos, let’s pick an easier target to soften them up. Just put a couple rounds through the Zodiac’s rim.” The Zodiac was an inflatable. Each round through the inflatable rim would put two holes in the boat to let the air rush out.

  Marcos started shooting. The fourth round hit. He let the boat sink a bit, becoming more sluggish in the water, and fired his last round. Two more holes blew open.

  Ping clapped. “My turn. Let’s see how it goes with the engine now.” She took her time and fired. The outboard motor blew off the boat, almost hitting the second boat, which had slowed down for rescue operations.

  Ping switched targets to the second boat. A second shot, and a second engine leaped from its moorings into the sea, burning as it spun across the water. “Soup, put a couple holes in that second boat, just so they understand their situation fully.” Ping heard the throaty sound of the high power catamaran engines as Putu brought the Fast Cat out to the dock. “Meanwhile, I’ll go with Putu and see what kind of fish we can pick out of the sea.”

  The Fast Cat was fast. They reached the wallowing pirate craft in a few minutes. One of the pirates lifted his RPG launcher at them, then lifted off his feet and went backward over the side of the boat, taking the launcher with him. Ping held her hand high in a thumbs up for Marcos back on the Parnassus. “Two down, six to go,” Ping said to no one in particular.

  The rest of the pirates showed good judgment and picked up no other weapons. Ping took the helm while Putu, who was considerably huskier than herself, helped the survivors onto the catamaran.

  The sun fell across the terraced landscape of northern China as Jam pulled her “new” LandWind to the side of the road. She’d thought her Range Rover was a battered junk heap, but now she looked back upon it with a fondness generally reserved for Maseratis. Her present LandWind, a Chinese home-built knockoff of the Rover, had been dilapidated a hundred thousand miles earlier. She had no words in either Pashtun or English for its current state of disrepair. The seats were so badly ripped that duct tape no longer held the leather together. Rather, the occasional strip of leather held the duct tape in place.

  They had driven back to the Loess Plateau almost nonstop. They had made small detours twice to investigate reports of people passing the Accel test. One young man had been sent on to the Fuxing, while another had failed the in-person assessment. Other than that, Jam and Julissa had paused only to switch drivers and pump gas. Exhaustion had consumed her very bones. She knew she had been even wearier during her desperate journey to seek out the BrainTrust, but that had been several lifetimes ago, and her memories of that time had softened.

  At least this time bleak despair did not color her mood. This was more like her time in the commandos, when she knew that if she just continued to put one foot in front of the other, eventually she would arrive.

  And arrive she had. Having seen Song, Tai, and Xiu’s parents off on their journey to Vietnam, she was now only a few kilometers away from where she had first met Song, traveling on to the next family of candidates that had been identified by the Accel app. They had a mere a hundred kilometers left to go to pick up where they had left off.

  But they would do that tomorrow. Julissa was in no better shape than she was, her eyes glazed with fatigue. The two of them fell asleep in their seats by the side of the road.

  Jam dozed fitfully; her dreams passed into remembrance as she thought about the last conversation she’d had with Ping as she’d departed on this crazy expedition:

  They had stood on the gangway to the ferry hugging goodbye, as Ping had been trying to teach Dash to do. Then Ping took one step back and transformed, for the second time since Jam had met her, into a serious person, an owlish analyst of unwavering intensity.

  Ping squeezed Jam’s shoulders. “When you get into the North, on the Loess Plateau, look for a town named Baotong.”

  Jam pulled out her tablet. “Baotong?” She brought up the GPlex Maps app.

  Ping snorted. “Baotong. Don’t bother looking on any maps, the town is much too small and far too forgotten.”

  Jam was tempted to ask how Ping knew about it if it had been forgotten but figured she wouldn’t get a straight answer. “How do I find it, then?”

  “When you get to the area, ask around among the people in the other small villages. Someone should be able to point you in the right direction.”

  Jam looked at her skeptically. “Seems like a lot of trouble, unless there’s someone there who belongs on the BrainTrust.” She worked her display to show Ping a map of the Loess Plateau with a scattering of dots denoting places where people had passed the Accel test, hoping to join the Fuxing. “Are any of these dots in Baotong?”

  Ping shook her head morosely. “They don’t even have cell phones there, Jam.” She pursed her lips. “Just do what I tell you. Trust me on this. You’ll find what you’re looking for if you find Baotong.”

  Ping’s eyes turned wild; the analyst was lost once more. “You’re taking your dress, aren’t you?”

  Jam rolled her eyes. “I have no idea why, but yes, I’m taking my gown from First Launch.” When she and Ping had arrived at their new quarters in the Prometheus fleet and the Fuxing fleet respectively, each had found the dresses they’d rented for just one day. Each came with a note from Dash, After the party, Daniella offered them to me at an incredible price, since otherwise, she would have just thrown them out. I thought you might have better use for them.

  “Good, good. I just know you’re going to knock somebody off their feet with that gown.” Ping had laughed and waved as Jam’s ferry set off for Hong Kong.

  The dreams and memories dissolved abruptly just before dawn. Jam awoke to the sound of a passing pickup truck, green, shiny, and newer than anything she had seen in days. She put the LandWind in gear and followed.

  Few roads interconnected in this land of desolation. The fact that the green pickup seemed to be going to the same place she was going did not stir any suspicions…until the truck turned right in the middle of a village onto the same dirt track her GPS had told her to follow. When the truck stopped at a hovel moments before her GPS told her that she had arrived, she felt no surprise whatsoever. Jam smiled grimly. When she had called Dash to ask if she had any ideas for better backcountry transportation, had Dash sent her this vehicle? It did not seem high tech enough to be Dash’s idea of a solution, though it was certainly practical.

  According to the testing app, the family living here had two children, sixteen and thirteen, who made good candidates. She could see them now, running out of their dwelling and rushing over to see the shiny truck, no doubt far superior to anything that had ever parked by their house before.

  But the truck itself quickly lost its luster as the primary attraction. The sixteen-year-old, tall enough to see over the side of the pickup into the truck bed, started pointing excitedly; he lifted his younger sister so she could see it as well, and together their excitement burst to new heights. Their enthusiasm suggested to Jam that perhaps the gift Dash had sent her was neither so simple nor so practical as she had supposed.

  Jam strolled over to the truck, smiling warmly as she waved to the parents standing beneath a shallow awning watching their children. Looking into the truck bed, her heart skipped a beat. A huge assemblage of parts greeted her. Parts that could only be helicopter propellers gave her her first sensation of dread.

 
Was this a homebrew copter straight from the BrainTrust laser tag games, delivered as a do-it-yourself kit? Jam had to confess, she didn’t really enjoy flying. Sure, she had learned to parachute during her time as a commando, but jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with nothing but a parachute still seemed insane to her. Only one thing seemed more insane: stepping into an airplane of uncertain perfection without a parachute.

  The children had no such qualms. The father, who had left his wife behind, smiled broadly. “Are you the tester from the BrainTrust?” He hardly seemed interested in the answer; perhaps the answer was obvious. He had a more immediate purpose. “It looks like you have a copter here.” He scrutinized the plethora of parts. “More likely two copters, I think. Any chance you could build them here so we can see? Maybe even take a ride?”

  A teenager jumped out of the driver’s side of the green truck. “Are you Jam? I have a form here for you to fill out. Do you want the truck as well? They told me to give you the truck too if you wanted it.” He thrust a tablet in her face.

  Jam sighed in relief. At least she’d gotten the truck too, in addition to whatever the truck carried. She signed the forms for the driver, who swiped a document from his tablet over to hers. Only then did the ex-driver look around at the scenery with horror. “Now all I have to do is figure out how to get home.”

  Jam smiled; she had an answer. “Take the LandWind.”

  He looked doubtful.

  Jam shrugged. “It’s taken us thousands of kilometers. Believe it or not, it’ll probably get you home. Worst case, you’ll still be better off wherever you are when it dies.”

  The teenager seemed to accept that. He grabbed her keys, helped Julissa empty their luggage, and took off in a cloud of small rocks and dust.

  Meanwhile, the father was still expecting her answer about the copters. Jam frowned. “Honestly, this is the first time I’ve ever seen these. I have no idea how to put them together.”

  The son practically jumped up and down. “We can build it!” He looked at his father, then at Jam, then back again. “I’m sure we can build it!” His sister nodded in agreement.

  The father frowned at them. “I think you’ll need a little help.” He smiled. “I think if I helped you, you’d have a better chance.” He looked questioningly at Jam.

  Jam looked at the sky. The father hid his enthusiasm better, but he wanted to build the copters as much as his children did. “Very well.” She looked down at the doc, which was labeled Assembly Instructions. “You’ll need this.” She handed him the tablet.

  His wife still stood under the awning, arms folded over her chest. As the children let down the tailgate, the mother came over to greet Jam and Julissa in her turn. “Would you like some tea while my family is busy with this contraption?”

  Julissa bobbed a partial bow. “That would be most welcome.”

  So Jam sat under the awning, sipping white tea, watching as two copters of a new design took shape. The husband brought her tablet back to her. “I think we’ve got it from here.”

  She took the tablet and began to read the main message, clearly a note from Dash. Jam, sorry this took so long. As you may be able to tell, we’ve sent you two copters that I think will help you considerably in your mission. Jam had been thinking about what to do with the darn things the whole time she’d been watching their construction. In the end, she concluded they might actually be quite useful. She could plant the truck with their luggage at a less disreputable hotel in a larger village and pop out to examine the Accel applicants all over the region before returning at night. She might not like flying, but she certainly did like speed, at least for this mission.

  She continued to read. Even before you called I had been working with Ted, the teenage copter inventor who rescued me from Dmitri’s yacht, on some ideas for you. I fear he had more ideas then we could fit into a single copter design. Ever since we got shot down by that Russian assault helicopter— what!? Somebody had used an assault helicopter to shoot at Dash?! Jam hadn’t heard that part of the story. Somebody needed some personal rehabilitation on proper behavior— Ted has been fixated on “militarizing” his copter designs. And his favorite customer, Matt Toscano—you may remember him from the party—has been encouraging him. Jam closed her eyes briefly. She now dreaded to see the fine print on the operation of the copters.

  Anyway, you now have the first two stealth copters ever built on the BrainTrust. It seems my friends with this startup specializing in graphene applications ran into some old research on applying electrical voltages to graphene to absorb different electromagnetic frequencies. So there’s a switch on the control panel that allows you to turn on “stealth mode” that will absorb just about all radar waves.

  Between the black graphene copter surface, the radar absorption, and the catalytic fuel burners that convert the energy directly into electricity, thus circumventing infrared detection, your copters can be pretty much invisible. Especially at night.

  Of course, the stealth is still a little bit experimental, so try not to depend on it too much. Jam had to look away for a moment to get calm. Being “a little bit experimental” was, she had learned, quite similar to being a little bit pregnant.

  Anyway, the engines are very efficient, so these are also longer-range than most BrainTrust helicopters. Just be thankful I told Ted to hurry and get these out to you. Otherwise, you’d have had to wait a while longer while he tried to integrate bulletproofing as well. Jam chuckled. She could just hear Dash lecturing some teenager on scheduling.

  Regardless, I confess I feel more comfortable having sent you these. I cannot help fearing that the tyrants of China will be displeased with your efforts. It gives me great peace of mind knowing you can escape easily at any time, completely disappearing from their view. Jam appreciated the sentiment.

  I don’t know if you know how to fly a copter. They’re mostly automated, of course, but you really should know how to operate the controls. There are a pair of switches on the dashboard for virtual training mode. You should spend an hour or two practicing before taking it into the air.

  Jam looked up to see a commotion by the first copter, apparently now fully built. The son had clearly climbed aboard, flipped on the virtual training mode, and taken it for a virtual flight. Now the father and daughter were bickering over who got to try it next. The mother intervened; the little girl climbed into the cockpit. The father turned to Jam and shouted above the chaos, “once we’ve all taken the training, can we take it up?”

  The little girl, though she had not yet met Lenora, seemed to have learned one of her lessons at a tender age: ‘Tis better to ask forgiveness than beg permission. A soft whir arose from the copter as the child-pilot set the props to spinning up. The father started yelling in consternation. Loose dirt swirled as the copter wobbled into the air.

  Yes, these people would make excellent BrainTrust members. They already fit in.

  Jam looked back down at Dash’s message. Lastly, once you’re comfortable flying the copters, please call me. I have a favor to ask of you. In the middle of northern China? What could she possibly want?

  Love, Dash. “Love you too, girl,” Jam muttered.

  5

  Two Chocolates

  Here we investigate both Alt-Right and Alt-Left cookbooks for manufacturing alternative facts in support of fantasy belief systems. All alternative fact systems follow the basic SAD principles that drive successful popular media: keep it Simple, keep it Angry, keep it Divisive.

  —Accel. Topic: Fake News Creation and Identification. Module: Introduction.

  Ping leaned forward in her chair, her brow furrowed. “Are you sure Diric can’t qualify? Can’t you test him a little more to be sure?”

  Ciara lifted a cup of jasmine tea to her lips and put it down without drinking. It needed to cool.

  They were alone in the cafeteria, not unusual given their skeleton crew. Actually, with most of the work being done by the bots, even a traditional skeleton crew would have been considered
extensive in comparison with the number of crewmen now driving the Prometheus fleet.

  Ciara raised an eyebrow. “Ping, why is this so important to you? He’s a pirate, he tried to kidnap us.”

  Ping waved it away. “His uncle, who raised him after his parents died, tried to kidnap us. The uncle’s dead. Diric had very little in the way of choices when his uncle told him to come along.”

  Ciara looked at her doubtfully. She didn’t even have to counter verbally for Ping to know the answer: we always have a choice.

  Ping sighed. “He has nowhere else to go with his uncle dead.”

  Ciara sipped the tea carefully. “As soon as we catch up with that Danish patrol ship he’s going to prison, so it’s not really an issue.”

  “Where he’ll learn nothing but how to be a better pirate. Besides…” Ping mumbled unintelligibly.

  “What was that again?”

  Ping hunched over as if the next words hurt. “Besides, I kinda like him. He’s a good kid.”

  Ciara laughed, almost snorting the tea through her nose. “Ok, ok. Just for that, I’ll give him one more test. He’s almost bright enough anyway, it would be good to have at least one student rattling around in this fleet made for twenty thousand.” She looked at Ping sternly. “But only if he passes the test.”

  Ping straightened up and nodded sharply. “Of course. S’all I ask.”

  Ping watched from the observation room as Ciara led Diric into a tiny barren conference room: it was the same room used to run the Milgram protocols, though it was not configured for that today. Ciara looked straight into the camera at Ping as she unlocked his shackles: Ping could not tell whether the glare meant, “I hope you’re right about this,” or “You better be in here instantly if he attacks me.” Of course, Diric was such a skinny little thing it was hard to imagine him being dangerous, but Ping of all people knew full well how dangerous skinny little things could be.