by Tobias Roote
At Zirkos’ suggestion, he had presented himself to a variety of martial arts and self defence studios as well as inviting some old buddies, still in the services, to physical challenges in an attempt to measure the improvements to his body.
He had tried hard to keep the true extent of his abilities from them, but in all cases it was noticeable how much faster and stronger he was becoming. He was not concerned so much about that, he was concerned at the requests to reinsert some of the metal so the scientists could turn him into a lab rat again.
He would do it except for the worry he had on the continued mutation of his system. He was human, he had no desire to be anything, but human. If this was going to turn him into something else, he wanted nothing to do with it. So he fretted that nobody could yet tell him where it was likely to stop.
Zirkos walked in. He had been as active as Zeke lately and Ship had told him that the human was showing signs of stress. He had come to check on his friend personally.
“Hello, Zeke. I find you here, more and more, these days.”
“Yes. It’s a soothing location and it’s rare to find anywhere that provides any peace. I like it.” Zeke smiled.
“How do you think we are progressing with phase two of the plan ?” he enquired, hoping to draw Zeke out and get to the bottom of his mood change.
“It’s going well. There are now over four hundred scientists down there and in excess of one thousand engineers and factory workers. We are producing a wider range of finished products, ready for distribution.”
“Is it time to introduce phase three, do you think ?”
“It could be. Let’s get Garner up here for a meeting and figure out how he tells his Security Council that the USA has suddenly developed new technology that will make them vastly superior to all other nations on Earth.”
He chuckled and added what he was thinking. “And then when he tells them he is going to share the technology with all the other major powers, they are going to flip double somersaults trying to have him impeached.”
“Yes, I can see the problem. I had considered it too and I think the way forward is this.”
Zirkos continued to explain his idea to Zeke and for the next few hours they were deep in discussion as they worked out how to introduce phase three without starting a civil, or global war.
***
Meanwhile, Ferris had decided to participate with the insertion of a small section of Ferrazite. He was, at the heart of himself, a marine and a soldier, but beneath that he enjoyed being in control, mostly in power.
He had a great deal of new power now, as Commander of the Fortress, as it had become known. Nonetheless, he felt that additional faculties as demonstrated by Callaghan, in the conference room, would suit him admirably. He didn’t like being bested and he wanted nothing more than to get revenge and he was a man who knew just how to get what he wanted.
He went off in search of the scientists and prepared for what he knew, from watching Callaghan’s progress, would be a goddamned painful experience. He didn’t care, he wanted what came with it and the pain was worthy of him as a marine.
- 17 -
President Garner and Jake Jefferson stood nervously together as the National Security Council convened around them. None of the attendees knew what was to be discussed. The meeting had been called by the President, after lengthy arguments with Jefferson. They agreed that it needed ratification from the Council before the matter went any further.
Unusually, it was the President that intended to disseminate knowledge to the NSC, rather than the usual piecemeal contributions from each member, combining to mock-up a strategy for the President to consider. For this reason, there was considerable excitement in the room.
When the meeting came to order and the President had sat down, he looked around the room at the twenty-two people he relied on to help him run the country, and wondered what they were all going to think of him after the next thirty minutes.
“Ladies and Gentleman,” the President began.
“I have called this meeting today to ask you all to consider the likely position of the United States if, in a short period of time, weeks at most, the objective of war and aggression were defeated by such a great leap in technology, that it would result in violent oppression, by any opponent, being impossible to achieve.”
The room was quiet as he paused for breath, everyone silently digesting his words. He had their complete attention.
He looked at individual faces as he spoke, he knew most of these people and they trusted him. He knew he had to handle them carefully, even gently and so their body language might serve to warn him of any detrimental responses to his explanation.
“If the objective of a terrorist is to strike fear of death into the hearts of people and thereby gain power over them, and this threat is removed ; would the terrorist still hold power, if the fear of injury or death no longer existed ?
“If international peace is held back because it is carried on the back of fear of the big stick of global warfare ; if this no longer holds threat over other nations, then might real peace prevail ?
“If an individual on our streets could walk in total safety, at any time of day or night, in any part of our cities without fear of attack, then will we have achieved a new world order ?”
“I know,” he said, “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in there, but what I am talking about is going to happen, and very soon.” The President paused.
He took a calculated sip of water and used the moment to look carefully at the people around him. Of course, they had no idea what he was talking about yet, with the exception of Jefferson, who was sitting beside him, looking relaxed, but was watching the other twenty-one people carefully looking for reactions he knew might pose a problem for them.
The President resumed his speech.
“A few months ago, I was secretly approached by someone who offered me such an opportunity. They were not talking to me about military theory, philosophy, peace politics or social engineering. They were talking about a scientific breakthrough, that would give every single man, woman and child on this planet the ability to individually, and collectively, withstand oppression or aggression. That they would be able to achieve this purely by carrying a small box the size of a mobile phone. In fact, one just like this.”
He produced a small, dark grey contoured pebble from his inner jacket and placed it on the table in front of him. Everyone leaned forward, straining to get a closer look.
He picked it up and showed it to everyone and holding it close to his body, but still in sight, he depressed a stud in its fascia and was immediately engulfed in a golden glow which, after no more than a second, disappeared as quickly as it formed.
It had the desired effect.
There was pandemonium. The main concern, that something had happened to the President, quickly subsided as the President smiled at them and waved them back to their seats.
Jefferson arose at this point.
“Please don’t be alarmed. What you have just observed is the activation of a personal forcefield, around the President, keyed to his own biological fingerprint. It will ignore inanimate objects that are passive and only react to a threat, or an unwanted intrusion, by another biological fingerprint not approved by the President’s emitter.”
The uproar was now uncontained. The noise was so loud that the President’s security detail rushed in, arms in jackets, worriedly heading for their President. He turned and waved them off whereupon they stood down, but refused to leave until the noise had abated and control was re-established.
When order was finally restored, the questions and answers flew backward and forward until everyone was satisfied that the President was not in any danger, was not compromised in any way and was secure from any threat.
Once this was achieved and Jefferson could take control of the meeting, he did so, with authority. He instructed the committee to desist further intrusive questioning of the President and to concentrate, instead
, on the importance of the message delivered,
‘that man no longer need fear threat from another’
It was a powerful message.
Jefferson passed the floor back to the President who now stood, with his knuckles on the edge of the desk, leaning forward on them for emphasis.
“The condition this technology is being made available for us to build and develop, means that once we have produced working models of this device, we have to share it. Not just with our allies, but the whole world, and that it should be affordable and without patent.”
The murmurs from unhappy members grew.
The President raised his voice to still them, hand up towards them indicating for them to desist.
“Okay, everyone, here’s the thing. If we keep this invention on American soil, two things will happen. Firstly, there will be retaliation from other nations who want the technology for themselves, and secondly, if we hold it and they don’t, how long will it take for us to utilise the shield, forcefield, whatever you want to call it, as an instrument of oppression ?”
“Are you saying we cannot use it to defend ourselves and our people, Mr President ?” a voice called out from the left of the table.
“Are you asking if we should be the only ones who can ?” Garner replied, sweeping his eyes around the table, not sure which one of them had spoken and wanting to make sure they were all aware this was his ballgame.
“Unless we are the oppressors, what do we gain by keeping the technology to ourselves ?” he asked of them.
“But, we cannot just give it to China, or Russia. What if it falls into the hands of terrorist ?” the speaker was Davies, head of Economic Policy, who was probably thinking about the balance of payments and continued domination of the US dollar.
“If we give it to the terrorists and those they make war on, who is going to gain, the terrorist or the victims ?” argued Garner.
He pushed his point home.
“If the terrorist loses control, despite having access to the technology, then he gains nothing, and the victim gains immunity from the terrorists aims. The terrorist is defeated by passive resistance supported by a personal forcefield that protects the individual. The terrorist can no longer achieve his ambition,” he argued.
Gradually, over the course of the meeting, the debate shifted from whether the US should, to how it was going to achieve it. The President’s aides were all good at their job, top people in their respective fields, and it soon became apparent that the need for simultaneous distribution of the forcefields was going to be a logistical nightmare.
President Garner decided to offload the operational detail, so gave the instructions.
“I will leave it with you to consider your roles in the distribution of the emitters throughout the government offices. The emitters will be provided free to all law enforcement and military personnel, as soon as they are available, and we are taking steps to set up a commercial outlet via the main internet and mainland store chains.
This will get the product onto the streets with the minimum of delay. Davies ? You on the ball with all of that ?” Garner eyeballed him, skewering him to his chair with a non-verbal warning against failure.
“Sir, yes, Mr President, with pleasure, sir,” Davies beamed.
Davies was ecstatic at the thought that the responsibility for the commercial aspects of the project were his. Then, as the immensity of the task dawned on him, he sank into his chair looking pensive and pale.
Jefferson chuckled and leaned over to him.
“Welcome to the big league, Davies,” he grinned.
Davies gulped and remained very quiet.
When the President had finished giving out specific coordination roles, he organised them into a sub-committee and put Jefferson in charge, so that all elements of National Security were covered.
When they finally walked out of the conference, it was Jefferson who was smiling and Garner who was looking drained. Jefferson had never had so much fun at other people’s expense. He saw no downside for himself, or his people ; it was really going to set fireworks off around the world.
He knew he would soon have his hands full, keeping the lid on things, but it beat the hell out of sitting on his hands every day, not being able to do anything because political will was against intervention.
A good day, he decided. A very good day.
***
Ship, at the request of both the occupants, had realigned the nanobot walls to the point where the window now resided almost permanently in the lounge area. This ensured that Zeke, who preferred sitting to standing when looking out, had no further vertigo attacks. It also made the room extremely popular with both of them, as well as the occasional visitor.
It was their agreed breakfast period, their day tended to try and coincide with the time-zones they frequented the most. At the moment, that being mainly the USA, it was currently aligned with EST.
Zirkos tasted the coffee, but deciding it was too bitter, cast it aside and got Ship to deliver him a hot chocolate. The coffee de-materialised. He had taken a fancy to the sweet beverage after visiting the Fortress manufacturing plant and being invited to sit at a late night shift meal table with a mixed bunch of workers.
Zeke was watching him, in good spirits at seeing major progress on the forcefield emitters. They had been discussing the need to expand the manufacturing up, when a call had come in from Ferris, to say that they had resolved the scaling issues and had also managed to modify the forcefield’s intensity and sensitivity.
The boffins were now designing some new features into the emitters which could automatically upgrade all those issued with the inbuilt nanobots and a secure internet connection.
Zirkos sighed and leaned back in his chair, his mannerisms becoming more human every day. If his skin wasn’t silver tinged, he could easily be taken for a human.
“So, Zeke, phase three under way and, so far, nobody outside our little circle even knows the aliens are among you.” He laughed good naturedly at the memory of the night shift workers joked about the alien among them at the table.
“No, it’s progressing well. What do you think we should do next ?” Zeke enquired.
Zirkos needed to inform him of a growing issue. “The Pod has been reporting increasing incidents from the Chinese, where they are trying to cyber tap into the US networks. In addition, there is some form of mass human culling being carried out in the south of the country. Pod is also monitoring increased submarine activity and believes there are efforts to push for a pre-emptive military strike against the US,” he warned.
Zeke looked pensive. He’d seen the reports, but hadn’t really concerned himself over them until Zirkos mentioned a pre-emptive strike possibility. The reports from Pod had included ‘chatter’ that the US was working on new weapons that threatened the status quo and China was worried that they would end up in a seriously disadvantagous position. If they thought their time was limited, then yes, they might consider a pre-emptive strike against their old enemy.
“So, you’re saying we should go visit the Chinese ?”
“Yes, I do. However, I think we should use the new personal forcefields. Ship, I believe the latest patterns are stored ?”
“Affirmative.”
“Please provide Zeke and myself with linked shields.”
Zeke’s eyebrows rose. “This is new, linked shields ?”
“Yes, you can now manually link up two, or more shields, by both pressing the side button while touching shields, or in the case of the ones Ship has just modified, ours are linked by Ship who has amended the patterns because your people have put in hidden override codes. This is, ostensibly, for crime control by your law enforcement, but they have allowed for a blanket override which would make multiple groups vulnerable to shield failure. Ship has disabled them on ours.”
“Really ? Who authorised that ?” Zeke queried.
“It seems it was a suggestion by Jannson, backed up by Ferris. They argu
ed that, whilst the shields should be a secure personal safeguard, there should be some means of disabling them for crowd, or crime control. The agreement was reached whereby the codes would be inserted, but requiring high level access to activate. The consensus approved it.”
“What level did they set the activation at ?” asked Zeke, already guessing the answer to his question.
“General Ferris is the lowest activation level in the military, the equivalent levels in both the agencies and the Police forces are also allocated these codes.”
“Have the codes been provided to these groups yet ?”
“No, only General Ferris has them until they deem the situation stable enough to introduce officially.”
“Damnation !” Zeke fumed.
“You feel this is an attempt to control the technology, Zeke ?”
“No, I feel it maybe an attempt to control the people. To take, or wrest back, the power of oppression.”
“Do you not need some means with which to disable a person’s shield. Perhaps if they are in need of medical assistance, but the shield doesn’t realise. Or, if the citizen is somehow causing risk to others beyond what we perceive possible at this moment ?” Zirkos offered.
Zeke conceded the point. “Yes, in such instances I believe this to be a good idea. However, the ability for a military general to disable individual, as well as mass disablement of personal shields, runs counter to our foundation, that every person has the right to protect themselves. The need to disable mass shields is purely for oppressive purposes.”
“I see. In that case we should do something about it,” Zirkos mused, he steepled his fingers, a habit that had grown on him from the outset.
“Ship, has the nanobot code been rewritten by the Fortress group yet ?”
“Negative, Maker. They have been unable to write the code tight enough to fit the existing data block size.”
“Ship, can we design an override for the forcefield disablement code without it being detected by Ferris ?”