Analog SFF, April 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The basic theory was thirty years old, dating back to Fried's Syndrome E paper. Bursts of overactivity in the orbito-frontal and medial prefrontal cortices produced feedback that inhibited the amygdala. That blocked consciousness of emotion, allowing monstrous action without remorse. Afterward, the prefrontal cortex would fall into underarousal, precluding self-reflection, letting one avoid acknowledgment of the horror of one's deeds.

  "Of course,” Lucinda told herself. Anyone closely involved with the plot would have that defective neural architecture, maybe stronger than she'd seen in all the murderers and pedophiles who had gone through the lab. They could attack that structure. They could do it.

  Now, should they?

  "Of course what?” Kate asked.

  Before Lucinda could wave her off, a commotion began up front. They heard mutters of horror and disgust, and Morris Hope swearing like an urban gang member, complete with traces of inner-city accent.

  "God, what now?” Kate said. She stayed in her seat, but Lucinda got up. She raised a fist to knock at the partition door, looked at it as though it were something ludicrous, then knocked anyway.

  It got quiet up front. “No keeping secrets in these quarters, is there?” Lomax said.

  Hope opened the door, wearing a scowl that sent a shock through Lucinda. “Salted,” he spat.

  "What?” Nancy and Kate said. Lucinda, through bizarre association, thought he meant peanuts.

  "The bomb was salted. Sampling drones confirmed cobalt-60, zinc-65, maybe others. The fallout's gonna be a mother.” He stopped there, this time. “They really thought of everything. Fu—argh, stinking geniuses."

  Nancy, horrified by the salting news, was suddenly doubly so. “How can you say that about these monsters, calling them geniuses?"

  "Intelligence doesn't guarantee moral goodness, Doctor.” Hope spoke with forced mildness, and let the words hang for a second. “It does seem to guarantee good planning."

  "Good?” said Kate. “Why attack a city with drones filled with gas or germs or what-have-you when you're going to nuke it a minute later?"

  "Diversion,” Hope said sharply. “All diversion. The rocket that took out the sensor aerostat came from the southwest, fixing attention there. Then came the drones from west and southeast, splitting that attention. They probably had nothing but smoke aboard, but they spread confusion, and kept attention away from the northeast. The plane out of College Park Airport must've been noticed flying at rooftop level, but word didn't filter into the command and control loop until it was too late. Of course, the bomb probably had a dead-man's switch, going off right when that SAM hit it, but at least we might have limited the damage if we'd caught them earlier, set it off lower to shrink the blast radius.

  "And the timing.” He grunted, but lost none of his impetus. “All the commuters are in the city; the West Coast is awake; the attack unfolds just slow enough to give millions of people time to tune in and watch the big ending live. And it comes just before an election. Yeah, they knew exactly what they were doing."

  His discourse had put Lucinda's stomach into knots, more than before. “You sound very knowledgeable, Mr. Hope,” she said. Morris gave a hesitant nod, no more. “Who do you think—?"

  The scowl returned. “I'm thinking the QT's, but they couldn't build an atomic bomb, not one this powerful, not alone. That means a government produced it, and who couldn't that be? Iran, Pakistan, China...” He hesitated, but he was too far in to stop. “Maybe the ex-Israeli arsenal, Russia, Korea, Brazil, or Egypt if they've really got ‘em—any nuke power except us and Britain, maybe Japan."

  "You don't need us after all,” Nancy said archly, “if you're convinced al-Qaeda al-Taeni is guilty."

  "I'm not convinced,” he shot back. “Even if I were, it's not me who matters. I've gone through this before.” He advanced a step on Nancy. “But whoever did it, did all they could to kill, destroy, contaminate, terrorize. Yes, Dr. LaPierre, they're smart. Maybe smart enough to get away with this.” His look took in Lucinda. “That means they'll have the chance to do it again."

  Lucinda felt her face burn. Nancy's dark face didn't flush, but her expression showed similar reactions that she strove to master. “Mr. Hope, I have a husband back in California who hasn't been able to reach me the last couple hours, and must be worried out of his mind. I need to speak to him, tell him I'm well. Can you arrange that?"

  Hope's face went from sympathy to suspicion. “I'm sorry, I can't permit that."

  "Can't? You mean you're going to cut us off from the world if we don't cooperate?"

  "What about my daughter?” Kate added. “She's just in sixth grade."

  "I can't let any of you call out. It's a matter of security, not punishment.” He ignored Nancy's snort. “We can contact your families, give them some explanation of the circumstances. That's all we can do."

  "What about a computer,” said Kate, “or a television? Something to let us know what's happening in the world right now."

  Hope grimaced. “We'll consider that. Dr. Peale?"

  Lucinda started. “Huh?"

  "Is there anyone at home you need me to contact?"

  She thought of Josh—then of her two workmates, just feet away, listening to every word. She wavered, then latched onto something else. “My dog, Ben, is locked up in the house. Nobody knows I'm gone. He's getting up in years ... don't know how long he can manage alone ... oh, it sounds so stupid, fretting over him when..."

  Hope laid a hand on her trembling shoulder. “We'll manage something. He'll be okay.” He slipped through the partition.

  Lucinda recovered with only a moist sniff. She wasn't going to start crying now, of all times. She felt eyes on her, and looked over her shoulder at LaPierre.

  "Don't let him take you in, Luci. He's a manipulator, playing good cop, bad cop with us."

  "Stop it, Nancy,” Kate snapped. “She said she didn't want us arguing with her.” Her voice dropped. “But if you want to talk about—"

  A sharp throat-clearing stopped her cold. Lucinda added a warning look, then turned her head toward the window and opened the blind. She watched the earth pass beneath, and tried to ignore the fighter escorts, as she thought.

  She wanted these perpetrators, these murderers of historic proportion, found. She wanted things done to them she'd be ashamed to tell to anyone—even if a couple of hundred million Americans would approve. She had no problem whatever with putting them through forcible overlays. She knew the reaction was emotional, but she trusted it.

  What she could not quite trust was the government, or specifically the current administration. Or its remnants.

  Lucinda recalled fragments of news, shots of the Treasury Secretary's motorcade on the streets of Chicago. Someone must have known, or presumed, that he was next in line. He was ... he was ... such a cipher, she couldn't think of his name.

  "...anti-government extremists, diehard revanchists for Israel, even a treasonous military faction..."

  She turned back toward Nancy. “Was I not clear?” she hissed. Nancy opened her mouth, then stepped back from the brink. “Thank you,” Lucinda said, and leaned back to the window.

  What was his name? She strained for minutes on end. Burrows? Barlow? No, Burleigh. Lewis Burleigh.

  The Senate had let him squeak through confirmation a few months ago on a party-line vote, not from confidence in him, but from inability to find anything actually disqualifying. He was a party drone, a bloodless accountant. He wouldn't do much but go with the current of what was left of the Davis Administration.

  She had no respect for them: misguided, power hungry, intermittently competent, preferring politics to statecraft. They didn't deserve to wield power. They didn't deserve a taste of this power. And they didn't deserve to have someone ride in and rescue them from this fiasco.

  But there were over three hundred million other Americans. What did they deserve?

  As she pondered that, she saw a new plane approaching, then another. Did they really need that m
any escorts? Then the original escorts peeled away, and the new fighters took their place. Just a changing of the guard, but that still pointed to someone thinking they were worth the trouble.

  "...irrational, insane to provoke us. They have what they wanted. We're out of the world."

  "They must count North America as part of the world."

  Lucinda unbuckled her seat belt and stood, glowering over them. Kate and Nancy both managed to look abashed, or at least worried about what she would do. She had to think about that for a moment.

  "I'm going to the lavatory,” she decided, “for exactly five minutes. Get it out of your systems."

  They managed to hold their tongues until she shut the door on the closet-sized washroom. She made good use of the time, but by the fourth minute was reduced to periodically dashing cold water on her face and looking deep into the mirror. Still she waited, until five minutes to the second, before opening the door. It hadn't been enough.

  "—won't bring them back to life, and I won't abet it. Our work is the antithesis of that attitude: we cure instead of punishing. Will you betray that?"

  "Betray?” Kate sputtered. “You call that betrayal? Getting no justice for our friends, for all the dead, for our country is betrayal!"

  "I'm so sorry to see you like this, choking on hatred. I'm sorry to see you fall in line with them.” Nancy's voice grew softer still. “Pavel would never have approved."

  "How, how can you tell me that?” Kate was choking now, on tears. “How can you throw—throw that in my—” She broke down completely.

  Lucinda finally understood, and could scarcely believe it. Pavel had never seemed interested in women. Nor in men, either, even when that would have explained his particular vehemence during the incident that wrecked her standing in the project. Pavel and Kate? It didn't seem like him.

  Unless it was one more political stratagem.

  It was horrible to think that, now, but she couldn't unthink it. True or not, what luck that she hadn't tried to recruit Kate for the walkout.

  Thinking of that led her to worry about Sam, and her mind spun off in new directions. She walked past Nancy and the sobbing Kate, took her seat, and began looking again at the choice before her.

  She didn't realize how long she'd been thinking without a resolution until it registered that the wide, dark river the plane had just passed was the Mississippi. As she despaired of ever reaching a decision, Morris Hope came in again. He looked more depleted than before, save for the slim, dangerous smile.

  "We got the shooter,” he told them. Three blank expressions met him. “The rocket shooter,” he said, “trying to flee through Virginia. Had him for hours, but it took this long to bring us into the loop."

  "What?” said Kate. “How could they not tell you?"

  "Turf marking. Fear of error. I'd expect that from the CYA—er, the CIA, but anyway, we've got him. He should be taken ... where we're going."

  "And where is that?” asked Nancy.

  Hope's face closed off. “A secure facility. Now, I have to have your final answers very soon. We've gotta know how many people we're taking through security. We can't wing that, not there, not today. So, ladies, I need—"

  "Oh, drop the pretense of politeness,” Nancy said. “You're giving us an order. I'm disobeying it."

  Kate gave a quick, burning glance over her shoulder. “I'll help you, sir, any way I'm able."

  Hope almost smiled. “Dr. Peale?” He waited. “Please?"

  Lucinda could barely find words. “I have ... reservations ... and I don't understand the urgency. Why would you rather have a ‘no’ now than a ‘yes’ tomorrow? Why can't it wait even a couple of hours?"

  "Doctor, you've had hours."

  "I think you know what I mean.” But her strong tone was a sham.

  "Okay, I do."

  "It makes me ... leery.” It wasn't a big problem with her; it merely touched the outer fringes of her greater distrust, the one it wouldn't help to share with him.

  Hope stood for a minute, thinking, then stepped back into the forward compartment. Nothing happened for a while. Nancy leaned forward to whisper, “He can't answer you, Lucinda,” but Lucinda didn't acknowledge her.

  A moment later he returned, a television console in his arms, its electrical cord draped over one arm. Another agent was behind him, a Hispanic woman who got a dirty look from Nancy.

  "This is programmed for feeds from the five networks,” said Hope, “the big four cable news channels, the C-SPANs—but those are gone.” He looked around the constricted space. “Where can we put this so all of you can watch?"

  They had to set it on the aisle in front of the partition door, and snake the cord past Lucinda's feet to an outlet. In the confusion, the Hispanic agent slipped into the seat across from Nancy.

  "You'll get thirty, forty minutes of this before we start our approach.” Hope looked right at Lucinda. “I hope this helps you.” He handed her the channel changer, and stepped gingerly over the set and through the door.

  Lucinda hit the power button with a bitter-medicine quickness. A voice was reciting names, supplemented when the picture came in by photos and captions.

  "—assistant director. Louis Pastorini, video technician. Marianne Porter, audio technician—someone I knew when we worked together in Chicago. Osvaldo Reyes—"

  A casualty list, but not for the city or the government. The anchor was reading off network employees missing in Washington. Lucinda clicked the remote, before the urge to hurl it grew too strong.

  The next network showed gridlock outside the New Jersey exit of the Lincoln Tunnel, then people packed cheek-by-jowl reading the departure board at Penn Station. The city was emptying, and it wasn't alone, as a shot of Los Angeles freeways proved. Residents and workers in dozens of cities thought theirs could be next.

  The report returned to the studio—but it wasn't the news studio. The camera stayed tight on the lone anchor, but the background Lucinda could see was from a sports channel. Part of the same corporation, she recalled, and well outside New York.

  "Looks like someone beat the rush,” she muttered, and flipped ahead.

  This channel was showing footage of overseas reactions, but when shots of a vigil in some European park gave way to cheering crowds in a poorer setting, they cut the video. “We'll return to that footage later,” one anchor stammered, “but right now it's pretty raw.” With a wince, Lucinda switched again.

  The next channel showed a map, Washington offset to the left, showing wind vectors and fallout patterns. Some expert was explaining what the various colors in the fallout diagram meant. Another talked about how the wind was shifting, from northwest to southwest, creating a broader fan of contamination from Annapolis to Baltimore.

  They both gave sheltering advice, and a switch to outside footage showed the reasons. Taped footage from Morningside, Maryland, shot through a window, showed thick salt-and-pepper flurries drifting out of the sky. A close-up showed several of them settling on the outer windowsill, lasting an instant before melting into inky droplets.

  "Survivors of Hiroshima recalled a black rain after the atomic bomb,” the anchor butted in. “In Maryland, black snow is falling."

  None of them mentioned those isotopes Hope had named. Was that being kept secret, or had the networks just chalked up one more horror and moved on?

  The footage shifted to residential areas inside D.C. Fire trucks fought a wall of flame, until their hoses went limp as water pressure died. Another shot showed the exodus, cars and pedestrians clogging a road as a fire engine and ambulance tried vainly to breast the flood.

  The next shot was live. Through the smoke, they could see an armored vehicle firing shells into a brownstone, bringing down a wall. A bulldozer advanced on the wreckage.

  "They're hoping this firebreak will stop the blaze, or at least give them time,” said an off-camera reporter. “But it's maybe three blocks away, with the wind behind it now, and nobody here looks—"

  A piercing horn cut h
im off. Someone shouted about radiation and moving out, and the feed cut out seconds later. Coverage went back to a scrambling studio. One co-anchor stumbled into a sidebar report.

  "There are disturbing reports of major unrest at several college campuses, presumably over the attack in Washington. Conditions described as ‘violent’ and ‘riotous’ have been reported at the University of Michigan, Wisconsin-Madison, Texas A&M, California-Berkeley, and Cornell, among..."

  Lucinda's gut, already knotted and cold, went to absolute zero. Riots at Berkeley. Her university. Where she had left Sam.

  He had pulled out of the underground garage a few seconds ahead of her when they left the lab. When he stopped his car suddenly on the West Circle, she went to see what was the matter. His glare was murderous. She followed it to a knot of several dozen people across the way at Moffitt Library. She couldn't hear them, but she saw arms waving and pumping.

  "Celebrating?” Sam breathed. “Can't believe it, those—"

  "Sam, no.” She shook her head, trying to shake it all away. “You don't know that."

  "Don't I?" His words staggered her. “I'm not taking it from them. Not today!” His car screeched off, the back wheel nicking Lucinda's shoe as he drove toward Moffitt.

  Lucinda hadn't followed him. She had been afraid: of estranging Sam, of getting caught in a mob, of Sam being wrong, of Sam being right. Of everything.

  Now she saw what had grown from that first incident, as pictures from Berkeley filled the screen, looking like something from 1968. Lucinda turned to her workmates. “When did this start?"

  "I don't know,” said Nancy. “There may have been some small disturbances when we were strong-armed away."

  "Oh, definitely ‘disturbances,'” Kate said. “Over at Moffitt, and beyond. They didn't exactly sound funereal,” she added, blatantly baiting Nancy.

  Lucinda didn't notice. She got up, pushed the TV aside, and didn't bother knocking on the partition door. Her sudden appearance gave the agents on the other side a shock. “Did you know about the Berkeley riots?” she demanded the instant she spied Hope.