Matt was sitting in the Haven’s ultra-plush cafeteria savoring a luxurious cup of hot chocolate when Gina slipped into the seat next to him. He smiled at her like a starstruck college boy.
She made fish lips at him. “Love it when you look at me like that.”
They sat together, sipping their drinks, comfortably at home with each other.
Eventually Matt broke the silence. “Finally outsmarted them.”
Gina raised an eyebrow. “BrainTrust?”
Matt popped both eyebrows up and down in a quick acknowledgment.
Gina smirked. “Unlikely.”
Matt shook a finger at her. “Skeptic.”
Gina waited patiently.
“Bought a seat in the Consortium for SpaceR. Next time they soak me when I need a rush job, I’ll be on the profiting side of the deal.”
Gina chuckled. “Brilliant. I’m sure they all appreciate how they’ve been outmaneuvered.” She kissed his cheek. “No one can outfox you for long, darling.”
Lenora came to the teamwork table where three of her best and brightest had set forth on a mysterious project. She was just thrilled with this team-up: a sixteen-year-old girl from Baotong, a fourteen-year-old computer prodigy from Canton, and a seventeen-year-old from the deserts near Mongolia. Kids from such different backgrounds coming together to do…something. “So, folks, what’s this secret project you’re working on?”
The boy from Canton looked away guiltily. The boy from Mongolia pursed his lips and started tapping furiously on his tablet, looking for something. The Baotong girl just smiled and answered. “We’re conducting an intervention for the mayor of Baotong.”
Lenora kept her smile fixed in place. “An intervention? For the mayor? As in, some sort of a virtual scenario game?”
The girl looked puzzled. “For reals, of course.”
Lenora thought about commending the girl on the speed with which she was picking up American slang, then thought better of it.
The serious seventeen-year-old found what he sought on his tablet. “He’s a tyrant.”
The fourteen-year-old chimed in. “Level six on the ten point scale.”
Lenora’s eyes bulged. “There’s a scale?”
The seventeen-year-old stood and showed her his tablet. “See, right here in the module we’re studying, there’s a table for rating tyrants.”
Lenora studied the screen. Yes, the mayor was a level-six tyrant, employing every technique up to, but not including, rape, murder, kidnapping, and torture. If he hadn’t worked as an underling for even worse tyrants, he would have scored a seven.
The girl explained further. “So according to the module, here’s the list of techniques it’s ok to use to neutralize him. As you can see, they all require his cooperation, more or less.”
Lenora looked at her in puzzlement. “But we already neutralized him. Everyone who worked for him came here.”
The girl shook her head. “If we don’t intervene, he’ll just do the same things again to another village, a village of people less able to protect themselves. He still has money and political favor.” Her smile developed a tiger’s edge. “Well, he had money until yesterday.”
Lenora had a sinking feeling. “Nigerian hoax?”
The seventeen-year-old waxed poetic. “It worked just the way Accel said it would. Really sweet. It’s quite fortunate he didn’t get any Accel training, or I doubt we could have pulled it off.”
Lenora stood stiffly. She would have to think about what was happening here very carefully. Best not to stomp on them in haste, however. They certainly had a point about the mayor.
There was, however, another problem. “So what are you planning to do with the money?” Lenora braced herself in preparation to offer stern words about people who plan to throw big parties.
Once again the girl answered. “We’ll invest it in the Scholars’ Loan program.”
Lenora took back the harsh thoughts she’d prepared. “That will help a lot of good people.”
The seventeen-year-old pointed at the girl. “That’s what we thought. It was her idea.”
Lenora smiled at the girl, who added, “And we expect, in the long run, to average a twelve percent return on the investment.”
The fourteen-year-old interrupted. “Fourteen. Over the long run, fourteen percent.”
Lenora stood frozen for a moment. Then she looked more closely at the module they had shown her, with the tyrant rating system and the ethically allowable responses.
How had he gotten this past the module vetting process? James would not have helped him, would he?
No matter. Her hands shook the tablet so hard her knuckles turned stark white. “Dmitri!”
Author's Notes
I'd like to say a few words about inevitability. When an author fleshes out his characters and situations adequately, he sometimes finds himself fighting with his own creations over the direction of the story. Sometimes the author has to win, but sometimes it’s best to let the characters have their way, especially if they're journeying to the key milestones anyway—just in a different way than anticipated.
Sometimes the situations and the people make things inevitable. A striking example in the BrainTrust is the subplot around Dmitri. I did not know it at the time, but Dmitri's character and story were inevitable from the moment I concluded that, because of costs, every person on the Brain Trust would have a cabin the same itty bitty size as everybody else.
How can that be? Well, let us consider the sequence of steps, each of which, in retrospect, had to happen.
Given that all the original cabins were tiny, and given that the BrainTrust regularly produced new billionaires, it was inevitable that some of those billionaires would get together and build a new isle ship just for themselves, where you could have any size residence as long as you could pay for it.
Of course, a ship just for billionaires in the world's most innovative locale offering the last word in creative tax havens would become one of the world's most prestigious residences.
Of course, a Russian oligarch would buy a place in this most prestigious place. Enter Dmitri.
Of course, the Russian Premier would compel Dmitri to kidnap Dash.
Of course, Dmitri would fail.
Of course, the Premier, being based on a real-life dictator who does this in real life, would assassinate him with polonium.
Of course, Dmitri would ask Dash for help.
Of course, Dash would save him.
And of course, Colin being Colin, he would put the recovered polonium in a vial for him.
Is the story of Dmitri finished? I hardly think so. What is the next inevitable step in his journey?
Of course, if I do my job correctly, then in the final climactic chapter of the final climactic book, when Dmitri's subplot twists to its final climactic conclusion, perhaps you will agree with me on the following:
It was never obvious. Yet it was indeed always inevitable.
Books by Marc Stiegler
The Braintrust - A Harmony of Enemies (1)
The Braintrust: A Crescendo Of Fire (2)
The Braintrust: Rhapsody for the Tempest (3)
Valentina
(Hugo Award Finalist)
David's Sling
(Prometheus Award Finalist)
EarthWeb
The Gentle Seduction (anthology)
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Rhapsody For The Tempest (The Braintrust Book 3) Page 19