Unstable Prototypes

by Lallo, Joseph

  A well timed roll drove the pursuing missile into one of the handy obstacles.

  "Six ships are entering the proximity," the computer announced.

  "Yes! The cavalry has arrived."

  His screen displayed six little dots. Because these were law abiding ships, rather than trespassing freelancers or murderous terrorists, they actually had their transponders active, so each dot had a handy little label, proclaiming them to be VectorCorp Patrol Vessels. At any other time, Lex would have dreaded seeing them, but right now a half dozen corporate cops were nothing short of salvation... As long as they didn't spot him. There was very little chance of that, though. A psychopath piloting a military vehicle has a way of demanding your undivided attention, as Lex had just learned firsthand. The SOB, with its slick paint job and stealth coating would just fade into the background, but just to make sure, he directed his ship in the least debris strewn direction he could identify, gave the engines one last rev, then dropped them down to zero. Once he was coasting, he flipped on a handy device called a cryo-shunt, which absorbed his engine's heat for a few minutes. Once he'd slid back into stealth, he was practically impossible to detect unless you knew exactly where to look.

  On his ship's display, he watched the feed from his rear camera as the patrol took up their positions around the gunship. Various warnings that were destined to be ignored were broadcast on all of the usual frequencies, instructing all involved to power down weapons and engines and prepare to be towed to the nearest "processing station," a VectorCorp facility that would normally be called a courthouse, except that calling it that would mean that there would have to be the opportunity for irritating things like lawyers and trials and due process. The gunship replied by opening fire on the nearest ship, which prompted all six of the VC ships to return fire. If his shields hadn't been torn up by the scuffle with Lex, the gunship probably could have taken the hit. As it was, there was a bright red flash, followed by a bright blue flash, followed by the pyrotechnic masterpiece of every remaining piece of ordinance aboard the gunship going off simultaneously. The display went on for nearly a minute, which gave Lex time enough to flick on his nav-shield. The VectorCorp ships still hadn't noticed him, so as long as they didn't notice in the next few seconds, he would be able to get the hell out of there.

  He was flipping through the various settings to make sure it was safe to do an FTL jump when he caught a glimpse of his clock.

  "6PM... Wait, what day is it..." he said slowly.

  As an answer, his slidepad chirped Michella's ringtone. One would have thought that all of the damage done to the array would have been enough to keep it from relaying the call. He scrambled to answer, bringing up her face on the video screen.

  "Hey baby!" he said, quickly doing his best to tone down the various audio alerts going on.

  "Hi, Trev. I know we just saw each other, but tradition's tradition, right?"

  "Yeah, and it is bad luck to break a tradition."

  "My flight has been awful so far. We just left. How are things going for you?"

  "Oh, you know. Same ol' same ol'."

  Michella squinted at him. "Is something going on, Lex?"

  "What? No."

  "You look awfully sweaty."

  "The AC in the SOB is on the fritz."

  She leaned a bit closer. Suddenly her expression became stern. "... You're chewing gum."

  "... I needed to freshen my breath?"

  "Out with it."

  Lex sighed. "Remember that gunship?"

  "The one from the University?"

  "Yeah."

  "Yeah."

  "Well, it blew up."

  "How?"

  "You're going to hear about a VC array getting shot up right about now. That's how."

  His radio scanner quietly began to pick up chatter between the VC patrol ships indicating they were detecting a transmission from his general area.

  "I thought you weren't going to get any more involved in this, Trev," she reprimanded.

  "I wasn't! They followed me!"

  "How? Why?"

  "I don't know! Listen, I've got to cut this off and get out of here or you're going to hear about me being apprehended and held for questioning regarding the aforementioned array getting shot up. Are you okay? No one came after you?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Okay, keep your eyes and ears open. I'll contact you when it is safe."

  "Be safe, Trev."

  "I'll do my best."

  He closed the connection and made the jump to FTL just as one of the patrol ships started to head in his direction. As the view out his window stretched and blue-shifted out of visibility, his ship getting progressively faster, his mind started to slow down. For a moment, there was clarity. He saw what this event meant. These terrorists were in every cranny of the military. Could he run? Yes. He was good at running. Could he survive their attacks? Clearly he had a fighting chance of it, at least for a while. But what about the people around him? This had been an unmanned array, but he could have just as easily chosen a busy port or trading post. Every one of these destroyed arrays could have been another ship manned by innocent, unsuspecting people just trying to live their lives. And what about Michella? How long before they decided to go after her? Lex was an ant, and the Neo-Luddites had a magnifying glass. Anywhere he went there would be a line of charred ground trailing behind, and an awful lot of slightly slower ants burnt to a crisp. There were no two ways about it. He would have to break the magnifying glass. Out came his slidepad.

  "Open Com Ma," he stated.

  The slidepad tried to connect directly, displaying an irritating spinning icon as it did, and finally informed him that no network connections were available, which he already knew. He was presented with the choice of canceling, trying again, or the default option of doing a delayed delivery of the message which was currently recording.

  "Ma, it's Lex. Listen, we need to talk. That gunship the terrorists used on Tessera just tried to kill me. I think I might be in too deep to get out without help..."

  Chapter 24

  Purcell stood among her men at the door to the scientist's cell. She'd seen him do some terribly disturbing things. She'd seen him issue commands that would kill everyone in the room. She'd seen him calmly endure isolation and sedation that would break any sane man. What she was seeing now managed to surpass them all. He was... whistling. The man was locked in his cell, deprived of his prosthetic arm and leg, and yet he seemed absolutely thrilled with life. His one hand held the dry erase marker he'd been permitted to keep, and with it he scrawled equations and notations on the wall, all the while with a song on his lips and a grin.

  "Dee," she said, suspicion in her tone.

  He turned and smiled. "Boss lady! How long have you been there? I thought you'd never come out of that room of yours."

  "Why are you so happy?"

  "Because I think I just broke my record for most products prototyped in a single day."

  "You were supposed to complete the designs for the CME Activator before-"

  "They've been done since a few hours after we got the fab lab up and running. They're in the computer. I've been drip feeding you guys the schematics and such since then. We're just waiting on the alloy."

  "You-"

  Karter made a mutter of dismissal and gestured with his pen, "Never mind that. Near as I can figure, that transporter you guys have seems like it needs... eh, needs is a strong word... It uses a carrier wave to do a coordinate lock. The frequency wasn't included in the materials you gave me. You wouldn't happen to know it, would you?"

  "You were given incomplete information for a reason."

  "And you fudged some of the numbers, I know. I'm pretty sure I've got that all straightened out, though. It was fun. Like sudoku, only with the potential for somebody's kidneys to end up eighty miles apart if you put a three in the wrong place, which I submit was the way the sudoku guy would have wanted it."

  "Listen, if the designs are complete and avai
lable, then I demand you give them to us!"

  "You already have the designs for the transporter."

  "For the activator!"

  "You don't have all of the parts for it yet, so having the design won't do you any good."

  "That isn't for you to decide."

  "What's wrong? The guy calling the shots getting impatient?"

  She narrowed her eyes, silently wishing he had been equipped with his arm so that she could give him a motivating jolt toward compliance.

  "Squint all you want," he countered. "I don't put the cherry on top of that design until your boys bring back the goods. Have you taken a look at that list of goodies I drew up for you?"

  "I've had more important things to worry about than indulging you."

  "I thought you'd feel that way, so I went ahead and discussed it with those worker drones you've got me palling around with. They picked some things they'd like to try. Mostly vanilla stuff, but I guess it's tough to get the really creative people to join your cult. They've been combing over the designs, not being able to make heads or tails of them, and itching to give one a try. Now you preach all of this 'we believe in trying the newest and best' nonsense. I'm giving you the opportunity to try out the future of warfare. You gonna take it? Are you gonna walk the walk, or just keep talking the talk like some sort of politician in a soldier costume?"

  After a suitable amount of seething anger, Purcell tapped at her communicator. "Engineering!"

  "Engineering here."

  "I'm here with Dee. He tells me you've been looking at his designs. His... toys."

  "Err... Yes commander."

  "What is your assessment?"

  "Well, the concepts aren't... clear. But there are a few really interesting devices. I would like permission to fabricate some for testing."

  "Is there a chance that they are a trick? Another escape attempt?"

  "Based on Dee's tactics, that is always a possibility, but we can minimize the threat by choosing something with low power requirements, or something passive."

  "I recommend the boots, or the shield. I'd really like to see the shield powered up," Karter offered.

  "Stay out of this, Dee," she barked. "Engineering. Make a few careful selections and have them ready for me to review in a few minutes. If I give the okay, fabricate them and have them ready for demonstration in the backup docking bay tomorrow."

  "That'a girl! Let me know how it turns out," Karter said.

  "Listen to me, Dee. This is for my men and my cause, not to satisfy your petty desire to have your designs tested."

  "I don't care why you're doing it. Just get to it," he said, turning away and scribbling on the wall again.

  "Dee, I swear to you, I will-"

  "I'm sorry Commander," interrupted Marx, "but intelligence is getting word on the assault ship."

  "Let's have it."

  "The communications were cut off suddenly a few hours ago, and now we've been getting chatter that a patrol of VectorCorp vessels were forced to destroy an unknown ship at its last known position, a relay array."

  "You're just burning through troops, aren't you? You're going to run out of ships, at this rate," Karter said conversationally.

  "You're with me," she said to the second in command before turning to the lead security guard. "You, take that marker away from him, and wipe those figures off the walls."

  "Please, no, don't," Karter said flatly as the cell door was opened. "What ever will I do?"

  The security guard gave him an elbow to the chin and took the marker away, smearing away a swath of the writing on the wall with his arm.

  "Really, boss lady? You're just going to let him do that?" Karter growled, spitting a glob of blood to the floor.

  "Soldier, if you ever hit him again... I want to see a tooth on the floor," Purcell instructed.

  "Nice. Excellent discipline you're teaching these guys... Next time you ask for my help, I'm going to want an apology," the scientist said, rubbing blood away from the corner of his mouth.

  Purcell walked crisply away, her second in tow.

  "Do we have any details about how it happened?" she hissed.

  "Nothing, Commander. The patrol chatter doesn't even mention another ship in the area. Just a few stray transmissions. All we know is that the ship had already taken damage by the time the patrol had arrived, and most of the relay cluster had been destroyed."

  "He was chasing his target, correct?"

  "Yes, commander."

  "And there is no indication that this Trevor Alexander was ever anything but a hoversled racer, a chauffeur, and a delivery boy?"

  "The only unusual thing we were able to turn up was that there was a large-scale alteration of his records a few months back, blanking out about two weeks of data in every civil, military, and corporate database we have access to."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "How the hell does a non-military pilot even evade our men, let alone damage the most heavily armed and fortified ship we've got!?"

  "I do not know, Commander."

  "Get me all of the video footage you can find of him for the last two years. I'll review it myself. I want to see this man for myself, how he carries himself."

  "Yes, Commander."

  The pair worked their way through the tight, industrial passageways of the station until they reached engineering. The more theoretical members of the team, those more interested with the planning and testing phases than the actual construction, were busily sifting through the batch of schematics Karter had provided. Technical diagrams were displayed on large, wall-mounted screens and small, hand-held devices simultaneously, with hastily scrawled comments and notations coming from every member of the team at once. The air was thick with post-graduate level equations being figured out loud, while a dozen men and women with nearly two centuries of combined technical expertize tried to work out the deranged technological musings of Karter's twisted mind.

  "What have you got?" Purcell demanded of the engineer nearest to the door.

  He was a sleepy-eyed, harried wreck of a man, hair thinning from sheer stress and sporting the stretched out and skinny physique of a man who had spent a few too many hours in zero gravity.

  "Oh, uh. Commander. The, uh, the designs are a little sketchy. Dr. Dee does not use very good design practices," he stammered defensively. "All of his designs reference other designs, so working out exactly how to build one of these, or what it will do, is next to impossible without having the entire historical context of-"

  "Enough! Just tell me what he gave you that you think we can use," she ordered.

  "Right, right," he said quickly, fumbling with his datapad and flipping through it. "Who's working the big screen? Put up... Uh... Put up the kinetic boots, the charge cannon, the signal manipulator, and the coil. The boots first, though. No, not those boots, Jerry, the ones that we agreed wouldn't set anything on fire. Right, right, those."

  A technical drawing appeared on the big screen. At the center was a recognizable piece of footwear, but each individual piece of it was circled and blown up to reveal a level of detail that was baffling to anyone who hadn't taken an engineering graphics class.

  "These are, well, these are the boots. He doesn't really have a specific name for them. This part here is called the kinetic capacitor mark 2, and this part is definitely the filter matrix, but-"

  "Give me the high level," Purcell said.

  "Right, the high level. Well. Over here he calls them double-jump boots, and that's a pretty accurate name. If the descriptions he gave are accurate, they store up kinetic energy, and based on the controls from this panel, which is hand-held, the kinetic energy is released. The effects are varied, but they could produce a second jump if they are activated in midair, or store up energy during a fall to slow decent, or deliver a kick with the force of five kicks, you name it, really."

  "Interesting. What about the next device?"

  "The charge cannon is an add-on module for energy weapons.
It allows you to store up astounding amounts of energy to be released in one blast. In theory it would allow you to compress the destructive potential of an entire clip into a single shot if you timed it right. The signal manipulator lets you alter the echo, interference, and phase shift of almost any transmission in order to disguise its origin. Not only that, it can allow you to make the signal appear to have come from just about anywhere. It will even produce secondary signals to confuse attempts at triangulation. Finally, there's the yo-yo coil. It is basically just a carefully designed node that amplifies the effect of a tractor beam, but the notes suggest that if you don't bolt it to anything, you can guide the coil through the air with virtually no energy loss and at spectacular range. It could easily-"

  "That's enough," Purcell said. "He mentioned something about a shield."

  "Err. Well, the other things all either interact with a power source that we supply or based upon controllable inputs... At least we think. What he calls the 'rebound shield' has an integrated generator. Karter could probably pull some very destructive stunts with something like that. We don't even know what the design uses for fuel. The schematics say, 'you have to guess.'"

  "How can they say that? How can he expect you to build and test one if he doesn't give you full designs?"

  "He doesn't expect us to build it. He expects us to use the fab lab. The lab computer's designs are complete, and encrypted with a cypher we haven't even been able to put a dent in."

  Purcell tapped her boot in thought for a few seconds. "Fabricate one of each. Disassemble and analyze them to be sure they aren't part of some sort of escape attempt, then set up testing parameters and see if they are functional. If they are, I want recommendations on how to equip and deploy troops with the best performing devices."

  The engineers looked to her with concern.

  "Listen. Remember our stance. We contend that society must embrace the leading edge of technological development in order to survive. I mean to prove that by example," she instructed.

  "But Commander, these are devices created by a man who is openly hostile toward us."